The Beekeeper of Aleppo: A Novel - Hardcover

Lefteri, Christy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1984821210 ISBN 13: 9781984821218

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2019

Synopsis

This unforgettable novel puts human faces on the Syrian war with the immigrant story of a beekeeper, his wife, and the triumph of spirit when the world becomes unrecognizable.

“Courageous and provocative, The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a beautifully crafted novel of international significance that has the capacity to have us open our eyes and see.”—Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz

Nuri is a beekeeper and Afra, his wife, is an artist. Mornings, Nuri rises early to hear the call to prayer before driving to his hives in the countryside. On weekends, Afra sells her colorful landscape paintings at the open-air market. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the hills of the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo—until the unthinkable happens. When all they love is destroyed by war, Nuri knows they have no choice except to leave their home. But escaping Syria will be no easy task: Afra has lost her sight, leaving Nuri to navigate her grief as well as a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece toward an uncertain future in Britain.

Nuri is sustained only by the knowledge that waiting for them is his cousin Mustafa, who has started an apiary in Yorkshire and is teaching fellow refugees beekeeping. As Nuri and Afra travel through a broken world, they must confront not only the pain of their own unspeakable loss but dangers that would overwhelm even the bravest souls. Above all, they must make the difficult journey back to each other, a path once so familiar yet rendered foreign by the heartache of displacement.

Moving, intimate, and beautifully written, The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a book for our times: a novel that at once reminds us that the most peaceful and ordinary lives can be utterly upended in unimaginable ways and brings a journey in faraway lands close to home, never to be forgotten.

Advance praise for The Beekeeper of Aleppo

“This book dips below the deafening headlines, and tells a true story with subtlety and power.”—Esther Freud, author of Mr. Mac and Me

“This compelling tale had me gripped with its compassion, its sensual style, and its onward and lively urge for resolution.”—Daljit Nagra, author of British Museum

“This novel speaks to so much that is happening in the world today. It’s intelligent, thoughtful, and relevant, but very importantly it is accessible. I’m recommending this book to everyone I care about.”—Benjamin Zephaniah, author of Refugee Boy

About this title

Review:

An Amazon Best Book of August 2019: When I would hear of Aleppo, the image it conjured is the now-iconic photo of a stunned and bloodied child sitting in an ambulance--collateral damage in Syria’s ongoing civil war. In the U.S. this conflict seemed so remote, but that image brought it close and engendered empathy for the plight of the people there. That’s what Christy Lefteri’s novel The Beekeeper of Aleppo does as well, a heart-wrenching story that humanizes the immigration debate by illuminating the sorts of desperate circumstances that compel people to flee their home countries or face a violent, and likely deadly, end. When the novel begins, ordinary Syrian couple Nuri and Afra’s son has been killed, Afra is blinded, and Nuri’s beloved apiary has been destroyed. Increasingly imperiled, they set out on a treacherous trek to the UK by way of Turkey and Greece—a journey that will test their already fractured relationship, and their faith in the world. Lefteri is the daughter of refugees and volunteered at a center for the displaced in Athens. What that experience imprinted on her permeates the pages of The Beekeeper of Aleppo; reading it will mark you in a deeply personal way too. —Erin Kodicek, Amazon Book Review

About the Author:

Brought up in London, Christy Lefteri is the child of Cypriot refugees. She is a lecturer in creative writing at Brunel University. The Beekeeper of Aleppo was born out of her time working as a volunteer at a UNICEF-supported refugee center in Athens. She is the author of the novel A Watermelon, a Fish and a Bible.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1984821210
• ISBN 13: 9781984821218
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336