We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled

Voices from Syria

By: Wendy Pearlman

Narrated by: Erin Bennett, Assaf Cohen, Susan Nezami

Length: 6 hrs

Publisher's summary

Reminiscent of the work of Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, an astonishing collection of intimate wartime testimonies and poetic fragments from a cross-section of Syrians whose lives have been transformed by revolution, war, and flight.

Against the backdrop of the wave of demonstrations known as the Arab Spring, in 2011 hundreds of thousands of Syrians took to the streets demanding freedom, democracy, and human rights. The government's ferocious response, and the refusal of the demonstrators to back down, sparked a brutal civil war that over the past five years has escalated into the worst humanitarian catastrophe of our times.

Yet despite all the reporting, the video, and the wrenching photography, the stories of ordinary Syrians remain unheard, while the stories told about them have been distorted by broad-brush dread and political expediency. This fierce and poignant collection changes that. Based on interviews with hundreds of displaced Syrians conducted over four years across the Middle East and Europe, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled is a breathtaking mosaic of firsthand testimonials from the front lines. Some of the testimonies are eloquent narratives that could stand alone as short stories; others are only a few sentences, poetic and aphoristic. Together, they cohere into an unforgettable chronicle that is a testament not only to the power of storytelling but to the strength of those who face darkness with hope, courage, and moral conviction.

©2017 Wendy Pearlman (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

Powerful Firsthand Accounts of Syrian Revolution

Just a powerful collection of firsthand accounts of the Syrian Revolution from 2010 to 2016. The simple approach of presenting different stories from people of all walks of life gives a good feel for what the Syria people have experienced and endured. It doesn't try to analyze and comment on the situation. It just presents things in a very human way. You start to relate to the Syrians as we should. Not labelled by a certain stereotype, but as real people. It is a sad, tragic story, but with moments of hope and inspiration.

Beautifully written!

This book aims to shed light on the Syrian conflict and give a platform to many Syrian citizens who have lived through the experience first hand, and I think it does an excellent job of it. One note I would say (and this has nothing to do with the book itself) is that the audiobook readers tended to have a very monotone voice which kind of loses some of the emotion and life the book emits. It might not be a problem for others, it just caused me to lose focus at times or feel distant from the stories that the citizens share.

An important account of the Syrian dilemma

Through the voices of the Syrians who have lived it, left it and want to return to their homeland, this account is a powerful vista of the varied positions of the people who are ‘visitors’ in sheltering countries. The presentation is powerful because it utilizes many readers to transmit the idea of identity.
A must read for the international perspective it imparts.

Outstanding

This amazing book allows you to bear witness directly to Syrian dissidents’ and dispacees’ very personal accounts of the current crisis. After an introductory historical chapter by Pearlman, the narrative is conveyed through direct, first-person vignette after vignette, offered with no author commentary. Pearlman’s effort is in assembling the vignettes in a sequence that conveys the zeitgeists for dissident or otherwise disempowered segments of Syrian society under the oppression of the prewar Syrian regimes, during the excitement of the Arab Spring, the sense of freedom followed by the horrors of the Syrian revolution and civil war, and then very difficult but at times hopeful life in exile. As a reader you are left to soak in the intimate narratives, story-tellers’ interpretations, and all the attendant emotions. Then you draw your own conclusions. I found the book riveting and highly effective for building understanding what it means to be a dissident or outside the circle of power of Syria’s incumbent Assad regime.

Misses the mark

The author, a political science professor in Middle East studies, neglected to mention that Assad enabled the terrorist ratlines through Syria and into Iraq to cause mayhem on behalf of Sunnis and its benefactor, Iran. The impetus for the "Arab Spring" in Syria was the logistics train that had already been set up by Assad, a ready-made terrorist force. In essence, the Syrian civil war was Assad's self-inflicted blowback.

The stories of individual hardship are enlightening and confirming, but only provide a few small pieces of the puzzle.