A SONG FOR SYRIA
Sing With Syria!
The genie was out of the bottle.
“The image is the last line of defence against time,” said the cameraman.
“Walls have become the sheets of freedom!” declared graffiti artistes.
MIGs whistled past them all, threatening imminent doom.
Bombs rained. Countless people died: more than a hundred thousand civilians, by any estimate. Countless fled: more than ten million, within and outside the country. Syrians made world’s largest refugee population.
Amidst the ruins, art survived, and announced ceaselessly the presence of life in Syria.
“A Song for Syria” is a dream that puts between covers poetry, fiction, art, songs and interviews of Syrian artistes - voices that have risen over bomb smoke, art that has been dipped in blood, of artistes who were forced to flee their homeland and those who stayed back.
It’s time. Sing with Syria.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank a million and one people for this book. People, property, smiles, kittens, guns, prayers, graves, silence, tears. This is a book that is uncomfortable and difficult and I am thankful to the people who have nourished it. I express my deepest gratitude to Riccardo Bella who has been a guardian angel throughout the process and Snigdhendu Bhattacharya, whose dedication has amazed me time and again. Between these two and all the contributors in this anthology, I am proud to say that finally, I have managed to create a platform that excites others as much as it does me. And that’s as good as it gets. Amen.
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Sreemanti Sengupta
Odditor, The Odd Magazine and Odd Books
