Alia Malek: The Home That Was Our Country

In this episode I interviewed American journalist and lawyer Alia Malek, whose work has been published by the New York Times and New Yorker.

I spoke to her about her 2017 book The Home That Was Our Country, which is partly about moving to her grandmother's flat in Damascus from 2011 to 2013, but also about Syria.

We talked about the murder of one of her relatives when she was on a childhood visit to Syria, the disappearance of people in Damascus over the years, and the descent into war.

We also talked about how she wrote the book, not just the reportage, but also using material written by her family, interviewing her family, and researching the history of the country.

You can buy Alia's book here: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-home-that-was-our-country-a-memoir-of-syria/9781568588445

The article mentioned which she recently wrote for the New York Times is here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/25/magazine/germany-trial-syria.html

She mentioned two nonfiction books. The first was Law Versus Power by Wolfgang Kaleck (with a forward by Edward Snowden), which is here: https://bit.ly/3QgBNni

The brilliantly titled Maeve Higgins book, Tell Everyone On This Train I Love Them, is here: https://uk.bookshop.org/books/tell-everyone-on-this-train-i-love-them/9780143135869

Finally, here is a link to my books: https://uk.bookshop.org/contributors/andrew-hankinson

Thank you for listening.