The Book Collectors: A Band of Syrian Rebels and the Stories That Carried Them Through a War - Delphine Minoui

 

One day in late 2015 Delphine Minoui stumbled upon a picture on a Facebook page maintained by “Humans of Syria” that would ultimately change her life. It was a picture of two young men in what appeared to be a windowless library of some sort. One of the men was leaning over an open book, and the other was browsing one of the library’s  crammed shelves. The photo was captioned simply, “The Secret Library of Daraya.” The French-Iranian author/reporter was well aware that Daraya was a Damascus suburb that had been under siege by Bashar al-Assad’s army since 2012. She knew that the city was completely surrounded, and that thousands of people were trapped there as everything was slowly being destroyed around them.

 

And yet these two men were making use of a “secret” library somewhere in the city. How could that even be possible? She had to know their story, and after several calls on WhatsApp and Skype, she finally found the man who could answer all of her questions, photographer and library co-founder, Ahmad Muaddamani.

 

The library, as it turns out, was filled by books that Ahmad and others found in the rubble of Daraya’s bombed out buildings. Their underground library relatively quickly became home to some 6,000 volumes, and would eventually grow to 15,000, each of them lovingly marked inside with the original owner’s name. That would be amazing enough, considering that all of this happened during the time an army was trying very hard to wipe out the city and every one of its inhabitants.

 

Delphine Minoui

But what is even more amazing is how the salvaged books helped make life bearable for so many of Daraya’s people. For some the books were an escape, a window into the outside world; for others they were a source of inspiration, a glimmer of hope that a better life for them was still possible; and for others, the books offered a whiff of the freedom that Bashar al-Assad was trying to steal from them. They could read and study whatever they wanted to, and the dictator could do nothing to stop them.

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            “The conflict causing bloodshed in Syria has paradoxically brought them closer to books. Reading is the new foundation for the bubble of freedom they’ve constructed. They read to explore a concealed past, to learn, to evade insanity. Books are their best way to escape the war, if only temporarily. A melody of words against the dirge of bombs. Reading – a humble gesture that binds them to the mad hope of a return to peace.”

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Bottom Line: The Book Collectors is a reminder of just how powerful the written word can be, and why dictators around the world consider the “wrong” books to be such a threat to their hold on power. They are right about that. Without Daraya’s secret library for inspiration and comfort, it is unlikely that the city’s fighters and civilians could have resisted their powerful enemy as long as they did. Inspirational as The Book Collectors is, its overall style is more reminiscent of a long newspaper article than a standalone nonfiction book. Considering that Minoui is a reporter and Middle East correspondent for France’s Le Figaro, this is understandable, if a bit regrettable.

Uncorrected Digital Galley Provided by Publisher for Review Purposes