Norton, 2016. Award-winning veteran journalist Janine di. Giovanni has ... war zone to experience one of the most destru
Delve Deeper into The War Show A film by Andreas Dalsgaard and Obaidah Zytoon This list of fiction and nonfiction books, compiled by Penny L. Talbert, MLIS and Laura E. Eaton, MLIS of Ephrata Public Library, provides a range of perspectives on the issues raised by the POV documentary The War Show.
London: Haus Publishing Ltd., 2016. Author Diana Darke moves to Damascus and restores a house, which she opens up to refugees from the Syrian conflict. A firsthand account of life under the Assad regime, Darke conveys the human cost of civil war.
Radio host Obaidah Zytoon captures the fate of Syria through the intimate lens of a small circle of friends and journalists. Beginning with peaceful Arab Spring protests 2011, The War Show offers a four-year, ground-level look at how the country spiraled into bloody civil war.
Yazbek, Samar; Gowanlock, Nashwa & Kemp, Ahmedzai. The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of Syria. London: Rider Books, 2016. Samar Yazbek was been forced to flee her native Syria, but after the civil war she sneaks back across the Turkish-Syrian border. She describes in horrifying detail the mass murder of Syrians perpetuated by their own government. She also recounts small acts of humanity that persist amid the tragedy.
ADULT NONFICTION Campbell, Deborah. A Disappearance in Damascus: A Story of Friendship and Survival in the Shadow of War. Toronto, Ontario: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2016. Journalist Deborah Campbell tells the story of Ahlam, a refugee from Iraq now living in war-torn Syria. Ahlam has set up a school for girls in Damascus, and she supports her family by working as a fixer for foreign journalists. After Ahlam is kidnapped, the author fears that she may have unwittingly played a part in her friend’s disappearance. The reader follows Campbell as she searches throughout Syria for her friend. Cooke, Miriam. Dancing in Damascus: Creativity, Resilience and the Syrian Revolution. New York, NY: Routledge, 2017. Despite the millions of deaths, displacements, and disappearances caused by Syria’s civil war, the artist community in Damascus has not been displaced. Miriam Cooke brings us into the world of these artists and shows how they have helped keep the Syrian revolution alive as they they explore conflict through visual art, writing, and film. Darke, Diana. My House in Damascus: An Inside View of the Syrian Revolution.
Worth, Robert F. A Rage for Order: The Middle East in Turmoil, from Tahrir Square to ISIS. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016. Praised by Fareed Zakaria as “the best book on the Arab world today,” A Rage for Order combines meticulous analysis and engaging storytelling to explain the origins of the Arab Spring’s descent into chaos. An essential read for anyone eager to understand the characters and political forces behind today’s conflicts across the Middle East. Pearlman, Wendy. We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2017. This is a collection of personal narratives from people living through the Syrian conflict. These stories testify to the strength of the Syrian people who risk their lives to protect their country despite Syria’s wide-ranging oppression and political backlash. Hénin, Nicolas. Jihad Academy: The Rise of Islamic State. Bloomsbury, 2015. Hénin, a war reporter, was held hostage by ISIS alongside James Foley, whose gruesome beheading was
broadcast around the world. Although his story is personal, he takes a skilled journalist’s approach to unpacking the extremist ideology and historical circumstances around the rise of ISIS. He shows how Western nations have helped fuel radicalization since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and proposes several policy solutions to the disaster in the Middle East. Di Giovanni, Janine. The Morning They Came For Us: Dispatches From Syria. Norton, 2016. Award-winning veteran journalist Janine di Giovanni has written a devastating account of the Syrian conflict told through the eyes of ordinary people. This book takes the reader into the war zone to experience one of the most destructive wars in recent history, and the resilience of the Syrian people in the face of unspeakable atrocities. ADULT FICTION Idilbi, Ulfat. Sabriya: Damascus Bitter Sweet. Translated by Peter Clark, Interlink Publishing Group, 2003. The protagonist of this novel is a young Damascus woman named Sabriya, whose diary bears witness to Syria’s revolt against the French occupation during the 1920s. As a young woman, Sabriya is passionate about the nationalist cause but is excluded from participating in the revolution due to her gender. The novel is a personal account of Syrian history that traces the twin injustices of an imperialist government and a patriarchal society. Adonis. Selected Poems. Translated by Khaled Mattawa, Yale University Press, 2010. Born Ali Ahmad Said in Syria in 1930, Adonis is widely recognized as one of the greatest living poets in the Arab world. This collection, whose translator Khaled Mattawa was awarded the Saif GhobashBanipal Prize for translation, gives English-speaking readers an overview of the poet’s
Delve Deeper into The War Show A film by Andreas Dalsgaard and Obaidah Zytoon celebrated 70-year career. Adonis’s poems weave together political critique, mysticism and experimental modernism, and probe the relationship between the Eastern and Western literary traditions. Khalifa, Khaled. No Knives in the Kitchen of This City. Cairo: Hoopoe, 2016. Khalifa, one of Syria’s most celebrated contemporary authors, believes that “it is the duty of writing to help break down taboos and clash with fixed and backward concepts” The author draws on his own experience as an Aleppo native for this bracing novel about the collapse of a family and a nation. Set in Aleppo during the 1960s and the years just before the Syrian civil war, No Knives exposes the brutality of the Assad regime through the eyes of one family and their friends.
protagonist, a writer who is banned from publishing, is not celebrating. On his way to visit his mother, the secret police seize his ID papers and he is forced to go to the police station to retrieve them. As he navigates a bureaucratic maze, he tries to distance himself mentally from his government’s oppressive regime. Ackerman, Elliot. Dark at the Crossing. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2017. Arab-American Haris Abadi decides to leave the comfort and security of his home and travels to Syria to resist the Assad regime. He meets a Syrian woman, Daphne, and the two attempt to enter Syria for different but compelling reasons. NONFICTION FOR YOUNGER READERS
Al-Neimi, Salwa. The Proof of the Honey. Translated by Carol Perkins, Europa Editions, 2009. The protagonist of this bestselling novel is a Syrian literary scholar who uses her studies of classic erotic literature as a means to reflect on gender, intimacy and sexual desire in Syrian culture. This novel examines the long tradition of Arabic erotica and charts the relationship between that literature and the protagonist’s own liberation.
Berlatsky, Noah. Syria (Opposing Viewpoints). Farmington Hills, Michigan: Greenhaven Press, A part of Gale, Cengage Learning, 2015. Opposing Viewpoints is a book series for young readers to engage with controversies from multiple perspectives. This volume examines the arguments on different sides of the Syrian conflict and supplements explanations with a range of outside sources
Hamid, Mohsin. Exit West. London, England: Hamish Hamilton, 2017. Our protagonists are Nadia and Saeed, two independent souls in an unnamed country on the brink of civil war. When they fall in love, they face consequences that are difficult to comprehend in the western world. Fleeing their country as refugees, the lovers face a future vastly different from the one they had planned.
Capek, Michael & Abboud, Samer. The Syrian Conflict. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Essential Library, an imprint of Abdo Publishing, 2017. Geared towards younger readers, The Syrian Conflict provides an overview of the crisis in Syria from the 2011 uprising through its present day civil war. The Syrian Conflict is an important educational resource, teaching youth about the atrocities perpetrated against the people of Syria.
Sirees, Nihad & Weiss, Max. The Silence and the Roar. New York: Other Press, 2013. The Silence and the Roar takes place during a day of celebration in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. The
Matthews, Jenny. Children Growing Up With War. London: Franklin Watts, 2016. Photojournalist Jenny Matthews has made it her life’s work to travel the world and capture images of children and
families who have been affected by war. While showing the devastation of conflict, her photos also convey the resilience and the hope that these victims have preserved. Lawson, H.J. War Kids. Lexington, KY, 2015. War Kids describes the tragic impact of the Syrian war on young people. The two protagonists must make decisions they are not prepared to make, as they come to understand the disaster that has engulfed their homeland. FICTION FOR YOUNGER READERS Jolin, Paula. In the Name of God. New York: Square Fish, 2008. 17-year old Nadia is a Syrian girl, trying to live her life following the laws of Islam. However, she is confused by her westernized relatives, and she struggles to find her place in her community.. Following the arrest of her cousin, Nadia begins to explore the world of Islamic fundamentalism. Schami, Rafik A Hand Full of Stars. New York, Interlink Publishers, 2012. A teenage boy from Damascus begins a journal. At first a mundane account of his everyday life, his journal soon begins to focus on his dissatisfaction with the Syrian government. Eventually, he and his friends begin an underground newspaper to document the atrocities visited upon his beloved city. Del Rizzo, Suzanne. My Beautiful Birds. Toronto, Ontario: Pajama Press, Inc., 2017. In this moving story, a young boy must flee with his family to a refugee camp, leaving behind everything he has ever known – including his pet pigeons. His concern for his pigeons follows him everywhere, until one day, three birds land on his arm, which begins his long healing process. This story shows how the Syrian conflict affects children who are forced to leave their homes in search of peace.
