Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A journalist and religion scholar who has traveled widely in the Middle East delivers poignant, humanizing stories of war refugees from Syria and Iraq. In these stories, gleaned from travels in 2016 and 2017 in Iraq, Syria, Kurdistan, and Greece, Saldaña, the author of A Country Between and The Bread of Angels, uses the theme of what refugees in flight were able to carry with them—often only the clothes on their backs. On Aug. 6, 2014, the Islamic State group invaded an ancient Christian community in Qaraqosh, Iraq, and 44,000 Christians were forced to flee. In Amman, Jordan, where many relocated, the author met a woman named Hana, who described how she and the other women re-created their previous social world, in which the sewing of dresses was an important tradition. “So I learned that objects could speak or elicit a memory,” writes Saldaña. “And I learned that when the places you love begin to disappear, you begin to live in them all the time.” In Istanbul, she tracked down Hozan, a famous Kurdish buzuq player, and his musician friend Ferhad, both from al-Hasakeh, Syria, which was riven by that nation’s civil war. Saldaña also recounts the horrendous conditions in a refugee camp in Greece called Moria, which was designed for 2,300 people but, by 2017, housed more than 7,000. The author’s exploration of Moria is particularly heartbreaking, as she clearly portrays the awful plight of the refugees as well as the unwillingness of many Western countries to assist. Finally, Saldaña traveled to a convent in Germany where a group of Yazidi, “members of a small and highly persecuted religious minority from northern Iraq,” found shelter from the violence of IS. Throughout this compassionate book, the author demonstrates the resilience of refugees, who carry with them their precious languages, cultures, and memories. Memorable personal stories that give much-needed depth and humanity to what are otherwise merely numbers. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

By 2022, 100 million people globally had been forcibly displaced from their homes, according to the UN. This outstanding book from essayist and author Saldaña (A Country Between, 2017) puts names and faces on several emigrants from Iraq and Syria, emphasizing their distinctiveness. Saldaña’s experience living in the Middle East informs her storytelling and helped her establish rapport as she worked on this multiyear project. Hana’s intricately embroidered dress, Ferhad’s music, Munir’s light, Adnan and Ghadir’s pharmacy, and Qassem’s family all hold the keys to saving what would otherwise be lost to history. These escapees are a diverse group united in their desire to preserve the memories and oral traditions that capture the last essence of their former lives. All fled war-torn homelands to desperate situations in Greece and Turkey, seeking survival while striving to remember the best aspects of their homes: hospitable towns where Christians and Muslims mingled peacefully and streets resounded with Arabic, Yazidi, Syriac, and Kurdish languages. Their harrowing journeys resonate with a determination to keep alive the places now physically destroyed, even when the world is unaware of the losses. Readers won’t soon forget the compelling stories of these brave individuals, revealed so poignantly by Saldaña’s beautiful writing.

Publishers Weekly
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In this poignant account, journalist Saldaña (A Country Between) profiles refugees scattered across Europe and the Middle East, focusing on the objects and traditions they carried with them when they fled their homes in Syria and Iraq. Hana, a mother in her 40s living in Jordan, has kept a traditional dress called a shal, embroidering it with scenes from life in Qaraqosh, her Iraqi hometown. After meeting Hana, Saldaña travels to Qaraqosh, which turns out to be a far cry from the beautiful landscape on Hana’s dress. ­In 2014, ISIS drove away most of the town’s 50,000 residents, and over the ensuing years of abandonment many buildings were damaged. In Istanbul, the author meets Ferhad, a guitarist from Al-Hasakeh, Syria, who wants to preserve the Kurdish songs of his childhood. He and his friend Hozan have formed a band called Danûk, named after an annual tradition back home when the village women boiled bulgur for hours and the children would gather to listen to stories and songs as they waited to eat. Saldaña’s narrative exudes empathy and offers hope, showing how “a lost neighborhood can be salvaged in a song and that an entire city can be carried in a dress.” It’s a worthy testament to the resilience of refugees. (Sept.)