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Syrian Dust cover art

Syrian Dust

By: Francesca Borri, Anne Milano Appel - translator
Narrated by: Ruth Urquhart
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Summary

August 21, 2013: A chemical weapons attack on the suburbs of Damascus reminds the world of the existence of the Syrian war. Hundreds of journalists from every corner of the world rush to the frontier only to leave disappointed when Obama decides not to bomb. They leave behind 200,000 estimated victims, and more than half of a population of 22 million people dispersed or refugeed in nearby countries: the worst humanitarian crisis since WWII according to the UN.

Francesca Borri is one of them. But she does not leave. She is 30 years old. For months she covers the battle of Aleppo as a freelance reporter. And she quickly realizes that to report a war is to hide with dozens of women and children, even a baby, born there, in a grave, "a piece of soil under the ground that is as expensive as three houses" or to scavenge for anything to burn for some warmth, "a broken slipper, the plastic hand of a toy" or to mistake bloody figments of skull for rubble. To report a war is also to meet with officials more worried about the stain of snow on their Clarks than the people they are supposed to help. It is to explain what is happening in Aleppo to journalists who have only been there once, on vacation, and bought a carpet. It is risking one's life because of the jealousy of a fellow reporter. And it is also about dreaming of driving at night with the windows open, about remembering impossible little things, the particular light on that day in that café at the beach when you were a kid, the eyes of people you love, all the minuscule simple joys that can be lost in a moment.

Syrian Dust is a raw and powerful account of the Syrian war that throws the listener right in the middle of it, without any shelter.

©2016 Seven Stories Press, English Translation 2015 by Anne Milano Appel (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

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reality bites

a frank, moving and frankly disturbing telling of the experience of being a freelance reporter in a war zone, perhaps I should say a questionable, shifting war zone. it has many of the classic tropes, lack of interest from publishers, sources with their own agenda, graphic imagery and the onset of PTSD, but this feels deeply genuine, raw and unresolved, there's no telling you what to think, whilst much light is shown into the dark corners of NCOs and journalism for the solar,and the day to day moral choices of those in the field.

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