Afin de lire mon avis en français, cliquez ici
Publisher’s write-up :
‘In 2012 the rebel suburb of
Daraya in Damascus was brutally besieged by Syrian government forces. Four
years of suffering ensued, punctuated by shelling, barrel bombs and chemical
gas attacks. People’s homes were destroyed and their food supplies cut off; disease
was rife.
Yet in this man-made hell,
forty young Syrian revolutionaries embarked on an extraordinary project,
rescuing all the books they could find in the bombed-out ruins of their home
town. They used them to create a secret library, in a safe place, deep
underground. It became their school, their university, their refuge. It was a
place to learn, to exchange ideas, to dream and to hope.
Based on lengthy interviews
with these young men, conducted over Skype by the award-winning French
journalist Delphine Minoui, The Book Collectors of Daraya is a powerful
testament to freedom, tolerance and the power of literature.’
Note: I read the book in French
The Book Collectors of Daraya is
a book on the underground library in a Damascus suburb named Daraya, managed by
four young men. It is written by the journalist Delphine Minoui, who has worked
for more than a decade covering the Middle East. In this book, she has not only
written about the library but also about the city, the four people whom she
interviewed for this book and also the situation in Syria, since the start of
the civil war in 2011 (this book was published in 2017).
This started when the author read
a Facebook post from the page ‘Humans of Syria, which talked about a man named
Ahmad, one of the persons in charge of an underground library. Daraya is a
rebel-controlled Damascus suburb and under the rubbles of the houses destroyed
by the bombings of the Assad regime were books of all kinds, classics,
philosophy, self-help, etc. Even though Ahmad was initially sceptical about the
idea as he considered books to be a means of propaganda of the regime, he saw
this as an act of rebellion and made the library a symbol of resistance (also
need to consider that they found some books that were banned by the regime).
Even though the writer is a
journalist who reports on events, this is a book on the people, mainly her four
key contacts, being Ahmad, her principal interlocutor; Shadi – the young
photographer who was like a ‘journalist’ but at the same time, also a witness
to the atrocities; Omar – a combatant for the Free Syrian Army and the
intellectual of the group and Hussam – who was maintaining a long-distance
relationship. I liked that these people
had their strong principles that they were not ‘thieves’ but mere guardians of
the books and had noted the original owners of each of these books and promised
to have it returned once the war was over. I did not know much about the city
of Daraya before I read the book but based on what I understood from what was
written, this was probably a suburb of the bourgeoisie considering how
cosmopolitan Ahmed’s interests were – who enjoys films of Amélie Poulain and the works of Paulo Coelho. In
the modern world, the elites have a cushion during most crises and manage to
avoid the worst of it, but war is an exception, where everyone is reduced to a
situation where having the basic needs covered is a luxury.
I liked that she did pose some
difficult questions which were necessary, like when she asked Omar if he
considered himself a jihadist. It was also interesting that even after all the
bombing by the Assad regime, Daraya was under civilian control and not the
military (neither the Free Syrian Army, nor the Al Nusra Front or ISIS) and
that was the reason why a majority of the young in the town could avoid being
radicalised.
To read books of this kind is not
easy, especially where it inadvertently ends up having an element of suspense
as I was very worried thinking about whether these four young men survived as
at the end of this book. The only difference between a thriller novel and this
is that this on real people and not a character in a book.
I was recalling what I used to
think during the start of the Arab Spring, when Mubarak’s regime collapsed,
followed by the lynching, and deposing of Gaddafi, my immediate thought was
that ‘the next is probably going to be the Assad family in Syria’. Three
years later, I was embarrassed by my naivete, considering the situation in
Syria which ended up being a gory civil war made worse by a dirty geopolitical
game played by the different powers within and outside the region. Maybe for
me, all this was merely an intellectual exercise and does not directly affect
me in any way but the sad part is that a lot of these young people in Syria had
the same hope, that it was their turn next to dethrone the dictator and obtain
their freedom; and it is unfortunate that we are very far away from that at
present.
I felt that sometimes, the bias
that the author had towards the Free Syrian Army was apparent, and she
presented a black and white picture where FSA was composed of fighters who
fought for justice and that cruelty was the only aspect of the Assad regime. I
am neither justifying Assad nor am I tarnishing FSA but the situation for sure
is a lot more complicated than that. I am sure that the author is more
competent than I am on this subject, but this book is very short (160 pages)
and she could have written a longer book giving more details.
She tried to touch upon a lot of subjects,
we had a lot of interesting information in bits and pieces. For example, I was
wondering where the women of Daraya were during all this chaos and out of
nowhere, a letter written by the women to François Hollande (the then president of France) appears.
And then, nothing, again. Perhaps we could dismiss it easily as a cultural
constraint when it comes to the involvement of women, but I am sure that at a
time of crisis, these constraints are not going to work and we would be able to
see the best out of every person (or the worst, depending on which side one is
on).
Since she is a journalist, she
has the style of writing typical of that of a journalist; while I find no fault
with that, I often felt that I was reading the news again on the civil war. I
was more interested in knowing about the people impacted than the history
surrounding it (which is available in many other sources). I also understand
that not all the readers are fully informed on the situation and thus, it is
important to give the context, but under such circumstances, as aforementioned,
it is better to have written a longer book.
Pour conclure, c’est un livre intéressant, facile à lire même si c’est
triste. C’est un peu déséquilibre, j’estime deux tiers vers l’histoire et le
reste sur les quatre hommes et la bibliothèque. Je donne le livre une note de
sept sur dix.
To conclude, I would say that
this is an interesting book, easy to read even though it is a recollection of
sad events. It is a bit lopsided; I reckon two thirds towards the recent
history of Daraya and Syria and large and the remaining on the four men and the
library that they managed. I award the book a rating of seven on ten.
Rating – 7/10
Have a nice day,
Andy
