“In the middle of the road between death and life lies a thin one-way escape – you were stuck there, with the infinity of time and being at odds.”

The Syrian internecine that began 5 years ago has jerked eyeballs and tears alike. A time where the value of life was reduced to brick kilns and mud, and life came to a standstill, a time where civilian life took its last breath but the reckless bombing didn’t stop, a time where a city that thrived with markets and whooping commerce is now home to one of the largest burial grounds in the world. The face of Syria has been desecrated, systematically by human vice and greed.

Becoming Assiya by Simran Keshwani is the Bone Chilling portrait of the Truth of one of the most Heartbreaking, Farcical and Gory wars of our times. The pages capture Simran’s heart and arteries – blood filled and raging with passion.

The story follows the life of Assiya AlSaeed, a Syrian refugee, caught in the War unleashed upon the Holy land of Sham. All of us have heard and seen harrowing images from the ongoing proxy war in Syria and Kurdistan, a site where bloodshed became as common as rainfall, and heavens revolted. What intertwined the pages of the story with depth and intensity was the unfurling of the tale with maturity and authenticity that proved there was no need to Hire A Book Editor in this young author’s case. You never know what turn the narrative could take on next. Like an unending stream of consciousness, the book offers the reader no linear plotlines like Jane Eyre. If you’re looking for a comfortable read that holds your hand and takes you around a narrative of agony, this isn’t your pick.

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Becoming Assiya demands the readers’ attention. It screams for empathy, not just conjuring up an image inside the reader and in a matter of minutes and a few mundane jobs later, you forget. This book stays with you, for a long time.

What comes across as a dystopian fiction full of dramatically charged moments – be it Assiya’s chance meeting with the Little Black Girl in the whorehouse, Malak’s catacombs of militant resistance, the pigeons and Youssef’s songs or the non linear, parallel narratives of the Daughter of Sham & The Daughter of War, Rabbia and Assiya – is the absolute truth of life for the people stuck in war torn areas.

Keshwani’s finesse at managing the sensitive issue along with literary adeptness and care offer you not a moment’s lasso for easy escapades. This is one read that will demand intellectual engagement. The abeyance of liberation and the cries of tragedy are so beautifully merged, it leaves the reader in a paean for the First Time Author.

The ending leaves us with hope for restoration of a society we’ve recklessly warded down to flames. The world’s was hung in shame as the Syrian Girl sang her song of woe, a tradition well preserved in Arab culture, and, in reading this book, so did ours. A door of realisation opens as you flip through, a realisation that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading.

“Words are mirrors.”, and this book lays bare the story of our collective tragedy as a being, that of Fear and Hate for the Unknown Other.