Salim Barakat recalls in a poetic style his childhood in the countryside of northern Syria in the 1950s and 1960s, as a member of the Kurdish community, using a series of characters from the village throughout this autobiographical novel. He depicts the harshness of everyday life in a small, remote village, and its surrounding landscape as a cruel playground for the children. It’s a multicultural land inhabited by Kurds, Arabs, Christians, Roma, and others, but also where the rivalry between the Arab neighbours is underwritten by government authorities, and where the local society’s conservatism is apparent in its wedding customs, vendettas, and religious beliefs. Barakat describes local customs in the form of recollections by the village elders that partly inspired his complicated fictional world.
Two years later, Barakat published a second autobiographical work loosely titled “Bring it loudly… bring the horn to its limit.”

Initially published by Dar Al Talia, it was republished in 1998 by Dar Al Jadeed

Approximate number of page: 100 p.

Foreign rights: contact author