Stories that begin, develop, become complicated, and are interrupted before they resume again. Their heroines: Siranah, Selti, Salma, Khansi, Aishana, women whose paths and destinies intersected in that charming region of northeastern Syria, with which the “Berlin-Baghdad Railway” tampered with and the destinies of its residents. .
From the plains of Mardin, the cities of Amuda and Ras al-Ain, and the villages of Shorik, Kondak, and Tal Halaf, these women whisper secrets in their low, intermittent voices filled with fear and illness. But their stories and songs go beyond their bodies’ struggle with tuberculosis, to immortalize the struggles of the Yazidis, Syriacs, and Armenians with oppression, massacres, and eternal alienation.
In Women of Tuberculosis, Reber Youssef, with his poetic language and his special sensitivity, explores the northeastern region of Syria, including its diversity: ethnic, religious, and racial, relying on in-depth historical, geographical, and anthropological research into what people live in that part of the earth, but he... Through his work, he creates a curiosity to explore history once again, after the northeast of the country now has the face of a woman.
What is war without the shouts of demonstrators, the roar of warplanes, and the screams of detainees in torture rooms? How do beings and actions appear without their sounds? What is the need for a doorbell? What is the sound of food cooked in a pot? How can a deaf child-young person digest such a silent, muffled world?
These are some of the questions raised by the book “The Deaf Aspirant,” which describes the image of the world after deleting its audio file, and tells the diaries of a father who raised his deaf son alone.
Relying on various narrative methods, Reber Youssef sheds light on the complex aspects of the fatherhood-childhood duality, including complex feelings, such as: love, hate, fear, and the desire to be free from the burden of this bond between the two, or to defend and strengthen it. It is a book about a father who voluntarily abandons the sounds of the world if they do not reach his son’s ears, and about a son who rediscovers himself to bury his deafness and fear forever.
