syria
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Leaving Aleppo: Crossing Syria’s Most Dangerous Checkpoints
After four years of ceaseless bombing and brutality, the security of life itself has been reduced in Aleppo to horror, terror, and scarcity of basic human resources.
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Understanding Palmyra
Why do we care so much about these ruins, while paying so little attention to the more recent past or present of Syria? Perhaps because we can assimilate these classical remains to our own past. At Hyperallergic, Michael Press explores…
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The Rumpus Interview with Chris Jennings
Chris Jennings talks about his new book Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism, incremental reform, Transcendentalists, Shakers, and creating a more perfect future.
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The Rumpus Interview with Meline Toumani
Meline Toumani discusses her debut, There Was and There Was Not, the rewards and risks of writing a political memoir, and what it means to approach a divided past and future.
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This Week in Indie Bookstores
Bookstores in Mumbai, India are losing customers from institutional sales as large buyers turn directly to suppliers, and though 700 existing retailers exist in the city, the last few years have no seen new stores open. A Syrian couple has…
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On Refugees, and Refusing to Be Scared
The news that governors are suddenly deciding that they don’t want to welcome Syrian refugees has really driven home to me just how cowardly much of this country is. We talk tough, mind you, but when we’re asked to really…
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Omar Souleymon Pledges to Help Syrian Refugees
The Syrian-born musician has issued a statement committing himself to helping those fleeing the current crisis in the country, dedicating all of his shows in the immediate future to the cause of the refugees’ safe travels: Began in March 2013…
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This Is a Refugee Camp
Zoe and I got an email the other day from Stephen Dau, a writer and expat who’s been living in Belgium the last ten years or so. He wanted to draw our attention to his current project, a series of…
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Syrian Refugees Napkin Math
Cost of the rubber raft meant to transport the Kurdi family from Turkey to Greece = $4450 Number of Kurdi family members to survive trip = 1 Age of Aylan Kurdi, the youngest family member drowned at sea = 3 years Age of…
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How “Good Stories” Make Sense of Crisis
For the Guardian, author Gillian Cross explains how fiction might help people to better understand and empathize with the experience of Syrian refugees: It might seem frivolous to be talking about stories at a time like this. Shouldn’t we be concentrating…
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The Families Who Tried to Save Five Hostages
Diane came and hugged me and said, ‘Father, please pray for me that I don’t become bitter. I don’t want to hate.’ For the New Yorker, Lawrence Wright provides a detailed and heart-wrenching account of the people who came together to try…
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Mystery Maven Memoirs
In the wake of the destruction of precious cultural artifacts during the unrest in Iran and Syria, a quiet memoir from the queen of mystery, Agatha Christie, remembers the landscape and archeological legacy. The autobiographical Come, Tell Me How You…