In the StoryThe Country Without War
Nadim describes a Syria where the war never happened. The man questioning him recognizes the details. In Hamburg, Nadim Darwish must recount a life that does not fit the accepted history. The places are familiar, the dates diverge, and his memories refuse to fit the available categories. His account could pass for invention—if parts of it did not also disturb the man listening.
Open the novel ↗A moment in the opening pages
That was not true. Nawal Keller had begun the notebooks six years before her death, when the first lapses of memory had made lists necessary. Recipes, appointments, phone numbers, neighbors’ names. Then maps. Streets in Homs drawn from memory. Buildings that no longer existed. Sometimes buildings that, according to Miriam, had never existed.Read the excerpt ↗