#Book collector connect professional

Muaddamani was 19 in 2011 and refused to join his family who had escaped to a neighboring town.

#Book collector connect professional

Minoui braids Muaddamani's riveting narrative with poetic insights gleaned from years of professional and personal experience. Over the following months, Muaddamani and friends recount their story to Minoui in sporadic bursts interrupted by spotty internet, explosions, and power outages. Amid the tumult, thousands of books have been saved and reassembled in a 'refuge accessible to all of Daraya's residents.' Muaddamani celebrates his cultural heritage against incessant bombing. Muaddamani describes a city that is fire and dust. Through expert sleuthing, Minoui tracked down the photographer, Ahmad Muaddamani, one of the founders of the library. Daraya had under siege by Assad's forces since 2012. The caption to the photo read: 'secret library of Daraya.'Īs a prize-winning Le Figaro Middle East correspondent, Minoui had taken a keen interest in Daraya, a suburb of Damascus and the cradle of the 2011 peaceful Syrian uprising. A fragile parenthesis in the midst of war.' They're young, in their twenties, one sporting a hooded sweatshirt, the other with a baseball hat secured firmly on his head. Minoui, based in Istanbul, found her subject in a photo posted on Facebook in 2015 - 'two men in profile, surrounded by walls of books.

The Book Collectors, by Delphine Minoui, translated from French by Lara Vergnaud, depicts the savagery of Syrian President Bashar al Assad's regime contrasted with that life-saving symbol of civilization: a library. In the cacophony of current events, it is heartening to remember that heroes emerge in unpredictable places. The Book Collectors: A Band of Syrian Rebels and the Stories That Carried Them Through a War, by Delphine Minouiīrutality grinds on in Syria, but other horrific news drowns it out.