Roundabout of Death
by Faysal Khartash & Max Weiss (translator)
To read a novel set in Aleppo, Syria, in 2012, is a glimpse into what it was like to be living there at that time and this book, by Aleppo-born author Faysal Khartash, is an incredible gift. It’s about daily life, buying vegetables, visiting your mother, but against a terrible backdrop of a city under constant bombardment. There’s also a side trip to ISIS headquarters in Raqqa.
To read a novel, presumably partly autobiographical, written by a Syrian author living in Aleppo amidst the city’s destruction is a moving experience. Every day the narrator, a teacher, goes to the café. He buys vegetables. Occasionally he visits his mother. It’s normal life, but it’s in Aleppo. It’s not the easiest read, not only because of the terrible things that happen on a daily basis, but also because it’s a very different experience from my own, culturally and geographically. There’s a lot of references I miss, or feel I don’t quite get. But after reading it, I feel I’ve been to Syria and got a glimpse of what it’s like to be living there as an ordinary person—and that is an incredible gift.
Sophie Roell, Five Books Editor
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