S8 Ep. 15: Ream Shukairy on Syria After Assad

fiction/non/fiction

Following the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, novelist Ream Shukairy joins Fiction/Non/Fiction co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss the country’s future. Shukairy, who grew up in California and spent summers in Syria, reflects on the long history of Syrian resistance to oppression, as well as how parts of her family emigrated. She also talks about how it feels to emerge from a culture of fear and surveillance, what it’s like to revisit what she previously wrote about Assad, and the places she wants to see when she returns to Syria for the first time in years. Shukairy reads from her young adult novel The Next New Syrian Girl.

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/.

This podcast is produced by Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan.

Selected Readings:

Ream Shukairy

• The Next New Syrian Girl
• Six Truths and a Lie

Others:

• Return to Homs
• For Sama
• The White Helmets (film)
• The White Helmets (organization)
• Last Men in Aleppo
• Cries from Syria
• Still Recording
• The Cave
• Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War by Leila Al-Shami and Robin Yassin-Kassab
• Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy by Yassin al-Haj Saleh
• Assad or We Burn the Country: How One Family’s Lust for Power Destroyed Syria by Sam Dagher

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