The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of Syria is a novel written by Samar Yazbek as a powerful and moving account of her homeland, currently shrouded in terror, destruction and war. Yazbek is a Syrian exile living in Paris and a fervent supporter of the revolution, yet as an Alawite woman of Syrian descent, to rebel against the regime is like putting a target on your back. Like other Syrians, Yazbek is troubled at the partial liberation of Syria from Assad on, only for its citizens to fall to an oppressive and authoritative regime, one similar to the regime before it. In the novel, the country is plagued by rampant death, destruction and desecration of antiquities by ways of bombs and overwhelming violence. The Crossing is Yazbek’s honest testament to the realities facing Syria that the world seems to overlook and not acknowledge. Yazbek shares stories of unspeakable brutality and in contrast, beautiful stories of humanity that arise like a rose from concrete.

The Third Crossing is the third and final installment of Yazbek’s novel, in which she confronts the leasers of Jabat al-Nusra and al-Sham. At this crossing is the dangerous possibility of being caught between Assad and Jihad. Yazbek’s testimony of the slaughter in Syria shows the essential ephemerality of human life. In the third crossing, Yazbek serves as a savior of sorts, helping the wife of a martyr sell cleaning products from her home in order to support herself without having to marry a Yemeni fighter to earn money. In the third crossing, and in writing the book in general, Yazbek is positioned as a courageous and unafraid Syrian woman on a journey to hopefully save her home country. In the midst of fighting between rebel factions and citizens facing danger at each and every turn, Yazbek takes the situation in stride, but not without her own fears. Yazbek is a direct look into the suffering of her people living under the continual threat of the Islamic State. The look at reality is shell-shocking even to Syrian-born Yazbek, seeing teenage fighters of the Free Syrian army languishing in the street and living in a no-mans’ land between Turkey and Syria. The “great transformation” that she suggested that Syria was on the edge of proved to first hold degradation, destruction, death and despair, just as she thought it would.

The conflict in Syria has shattered not only society, but the economy and the country’s political structure as well, possibly having caused irrevocable damage in many ways. The reconstruction of Syria seems to be the light at the end of the tunnel for Yazbek ash she describes in her book. Yazbek’s brave account of the devastation in Syria is even more of a shock to the American reader, who cannot fathom, even in the current political climate, facing such despair and carnage. Syria is being devastated at ruinous costs and further reconstruction will prove to be a nearly insurmountable challenge. While Yazbek’s efforts in telling the story through this novel give insight, it does not do much to ameliorate Syria’s problems; this then poses the question of whether or not it is supposed to. Was the book just meant to be an exposé of sorts in the unlikely event that change comes about from within Syria itself or another nation? The answer to that remains to be seen. However, Yazbek’s in depth of the Syrian turmoil gives the reader outside of the country a reminder of what exists outside of their bubble. Writing in exile as Yazbek did is a fate that not many can imagine, and rightfully so. Yazbek’s first, second and third crossings were equally perilous as she inserts herself directly to the thick of it.