Denison: 'The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria'

Denison University’s Department of International Studies and the Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA) Grand Challenge Crossroads Initiative present a reading and discussion with Alia Malek, author of “The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria” at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, March 1, at Slayter Hall auditorium (200 Ridge Road). This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Isis Nusair at 740-587-8537 or visit Denison.edu. At the Arab spring’s hopeful start, Malek returned to Damascus to reclaim her grandmother’s apartment, which had been lost to her family since Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970. Its loss was central to her parent’s decision to immigrate to the United States. In chronicling the people who lived in the Tahaan building, past and present, Malek portrays the Syrians – Muslims, Christians, Jews, Armenians, and Kurds – who worked, loved and suffered in close quarters, mirroring the political shifts in their country. Restoring her family’s home as the country comes apart, she learns how to speak the coded language of oppression that exists in a dictatorship, while privately confronting her own fears about Syria’s future.