Catrin Gersdorf and Sylvia Meyer (2006) state that ecocriticism is a methodology which investigates different ways to contextualise nature and its function ideologically, aesthetically and ethically in literary texts. Through a close reading of three novels by the Syrian authors Fāris Zarzūr, ‘Abd al-Salām al-‘Ujaylī and Jān Aliksān this paper will investigate how they, in their literary texts, engage with one of the biggest human interventions in the natural life of Syria, namely the dams built along the Euphrates. By an examination of the characters’ relationship with the river – and later the dams and their drowned villages, the paper will show that the novelists make use of nature and its destruction to discuss ideological stands as well as ethical dilemmas. Although the three novelists reach different conclusions, they all aesthetically utilise water and its innate force which is forcibly tamed, to examine interaction between humans and nature, tradition and modernity, and individuals and the state apparatus.