Nation-states, NGOs, and the media generally identify the refugee as a ‘threat’ or a ‘problem’. By continuously focusing on the political, the social and the humanitarian in Refugee Studies, the representation of the refugee continues to be negative. In this paper, I aim to push Refugee Studies towards the humanities -a field that has been neglected in relation to the refugee-. I hypothesize that literature can play a role in re-thinking the identity and experience of refugees. My PhD dissertation focuses on the literature produced by Syrian refugees who have sought asylum in Turkey -where I also have found refuge-, France, and Germany. Syrians constitute the highest numbers of refugees around the world (UNHCR) and dozens of them have published novels, plays and short story collections that narrate their experiences, yet these literary writings remain unnoticed. Syrian intellectuals are writing about their escape from the brutality of the Asad regime, their journey into the unknown and their struggles to learn new languages and to assimilate in communities where hospitality too quickly turns into Derrida’s hostipitality. These works are not the well-known diaspora, exile, or migrant literature, but constitute a distinctive genre that I theorize using Bakthin’s Chronotope: the Refugee Chronotope. My paper will analyze four works: Ḍāhir ‘Īṭa’s novel Malādh al-‘Atama (Haven of Darkness), Nagham Khīṭū’s novel Shaẓāyā al- Janūb (Shrapnel of the South), Ibtisām Shākūsh’s autobiography Tawq Fi ʿUnuq (Noose around My Neck) and Bilāl al-Barghūth’s short story collection Thalātha Lāji’īn Wa Niṣf (Three Refugees and a Half).