In 2011, Samar Yazbek, an outspoken critic of Assad’s regime, was forced into exile from her beloved Syria. She watched as the peaceful uprising in her homeland turned to bloodshed, and tried to alert the world. When her pleas for intervention were ignored, she became determined to take action herself. She decided to return.
The following summer, Yazbek made the first of several brave, clandestine visits, squeezing through a gap in the fence on the Turkish border. As the only Syrian writer to travel widely through ‘Liberated Syria’, the Northern area under the control of the rebels, she worked with local activists. Beyond her desire to be close to her people, she had a purpose: to help however she could, from building schools and comforting the bereaved to negotiating with gunmen.
Above all, Samar Yazbek bears witness. The Crossing is a powerful testament to the reality of Syria today. From the first innocent demonstrations for democracy, through the beginnings of the Free Syrian Army, to the arrival of ISIS, here are the daily lives of soldiers, children, ordinary men and women struggling to survive. In heartfelt, luminous prose, Yazbek shares their stories of unbearable brutality, and of the humanity that can flower even in the most terrible of circumstances.