Like a serene scene trapped inside a crystal ball in an eternal moment of peace, the Syrian city of Homs appeared, calm and full of secret dreams.
It is crossed by a curious river that tries to rebel a little and break the dull, monotonous crystal, and it is called the Orontes.
Then the war came and the city was fragmented, and the butterflies flew with their dreams into the flames.
Every day of war passes, bringing with it dozens of stories worth telling. This novel takes us around the city, to learn more stories about it and its residents, a city that has become full of stories.
The story of a final basil seedling where Father France parked his old bike before he was killed. And the stories of library owners that were stolen.
A kiss from a friend that he printed on the glasses of (Wael Qastoun) after he wiped the bloody dirt from them
The mystery of the lover who covered the walls of the gloomy cemetery in Bouha (Lulu, I love you).
A sad hand under the rubble of a house that no longer exists.
There is no fair narrative in times of war, but the language remains an apology to the city
The rise of the Third Reich, World War II, the fall of Nazism, the disintegration of Germany, the rise of East Germany, the fall of the communist states, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Terms that may pass over in history books, but they carry dozens of questions: What really happened? How did families who found themselves on opposite sides, divided between opposing ideas and warring countries, live? What does it mean to live in a country that suddenly disappears, and the enemy becomes part of the homeland?
The first thing Maxim Leo learned was to refrain from any questions, even about his family history. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he too decides to break the wall of silence in order to understand what really happened there, with his family, with his grandparents, with his parents, and with himself. To answer the most difficult question: What was so important that it made us strangers to each other even today?