Brothers of the Gun: A Memoir of the Syrian War

In this powerful memoir of life in Syria during the 2010s, Marwan Hisham writes from the perspective of a civilian living in Raqqa—the first major city to fall under the control of ISIS. This isn't the book to turn to if you want an explainer of the conflicts in the region or a history of the Assad regime. But it provides some vivid images of what it's like to unwillingly live in first a dictatorship and then under fundamentalist rule—pouring Coca Cola into your eyes to wash away tear gas; being interrogated by ISIS fighters who want an excuse to confiscate for their own; the internet addiction that leads to everyday people sitting cheek-by-jowl with fighters in an internet cafe sharing a shitty internet connection. This is a show more fast-paced read which places an emphasis on the humanity of the Syrian people, and is an indictment of all of those—Syrian or otherwise—who forget about it. show less

This was a very accessible if difficult memoir. The most interesting parts were the beginning of the Civil War — the protests against Assad and the emergence of all the different rebel camps arrayed against him and against themselves — and of Hisham's time working at the cybercafe in Raqqa, serving ISIS soldiers. It was written well, in an open-faced, approachable way, drifting between his past life as a child growing up under Assad's regime, to his life as a student in Aleppo, to his friendships with fighters, to his struggles to survive in one of the most chaotic and dangerous milieus in modern times. It felt like a gentle, deeply human introduction to the past decade of turmoil in Syria. The pictures were beautiful and haunting, show more as well. I wish I could've read this in the flesh! show less

From the National Book Award longlist for non-fiction comes this illustrated memoir of the Syrian war. The author is a native of Raqqa, the first city in Syria to be overtaken by religious fundamentalists. He was a college student studying English when the war began. He lost friends and his country. This firsthand account is a valuable look at the impact of the war on the average citizen and helped me to understand the complex forces at work there