? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Leftari is a short and poignant narrative of a Syrian couple who have lost all they held dear in Aleppo and have no other option except to leave their beloved home to survive. The narrative opens with Nuri and his blind wife, Afra, lying in limbo in a refugee holding house in Yorkshire surrounded by other refugees from different conflict zones all waiting to see whether they will be accepted as refugees. As they await their fate, we enter Nuri’s mind and see flashbacks of the life that they had in Aleppo: He was a successful beekeeper and his wife was an artist and mother to their son. They were living a full life surrounded by family and had aspirations and plans for themselves and their little family. As we read we see how their happy simple life slowly disintegrated and witness the ultimate loss — their young son’s death from a bombing near their home. Devoted to his wife, who has lost her sight and will to live, Nuri convinces her to flee for their lives traveling illegally through Turkey, Greece, and eventually to the UK. We see how both find coping mechanisms to face their loss — Afra through blindness and Nuri through Mohammed, a young refugee boy whom he cares for and realizes that only he can see him. Leftari, a journalist who spent time in Greece at the refugee camps, used the stories of the humans in transition, who left all that is warm and familiar, forgoing privacy, family, and home to survive, as the inspiration for her novel. The simplicity of the language makes tragedy legible and extends the experience to anyone who knows little about the refugee experience.

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