Diana Darke

Diana Darke (b 1956, UK) is an author and journalist best known as an expert on Middle Eastern culture.

After studying German and philosophy/Arabic at the University of Oxford, she worked as an Arabic consultant for both the British government and Racal Electronics. In 2005, she purchased a house in the Old City of Damascus which currently houses internally displaced Syrians. Her book My House in Damascus: An Inside View of the Syrian Crisis was first published in 2014, with updated and expanded editions appearing in both 2015 and 2016. In 2020 the book appears in Norwegian translation. 2020 also sees the publication of her most recent book, Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture shaped Europe.

She is the author of 16 guide books for a variety of publishers, including travel guides to Syria, Oman, and Jordan, and has covered events in the region for the BBC. More recently, her writing has appeared in various international newspapers, including the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, and the Sunday Times.