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

by Delphine Minoui

Here, reading is an act of transgression. It’s an affirmation of the freedom they’ve been deprived of for too long.

It’s such an enormous pleasure to talk about something besides the war. To hold a pencil. To fill a notebook. A feeling of normalcy. The everyday life that we’re starting to miss.

Far from the often sterile discussions of the opposition in exile, far from the luxury hotels in Geneva and the corruption scandals, they advance with baby steps, preferring to enrich themselves from a range of ideas rather than come to hasty conclusions on the color of the future flag, the role of Islam in society, or the place of the Kurds in the future Syria.