The Home That Was My Country: A Memoir of Syria

In The Home that Was My Country, Syrian-American journalist Alia Malek chronicles her return to her family home in Damascus and the history of the Tahaan apartment building. In narrating the stories of generation after generation of her family as they, their neighbors, and their friends come and go from the building, Alia portrays the Syrians—the Muslims, Christians, Jews, Armenians, and Kurds—who lived, worked, loved, and suffered in close quarters, mirroring the political shifts in their country.

During the Arab Spring, Alia returned to Syria to reclaim her grandmother’s apartment, which had been lost to them since 1970 when Hafez al Assad came to power. As she restores her family’s home, she learns how to speak the coded language of oppression that exists in a dictatorship, while privately confronting her own fears about Syria’s future.

This deeply researched, personal journey sheds more light on Syrian history, society, and politics than any war reporting ever could. Bristling with insights, The Home that Was My Country weaves acute political analysis with intimate family history, ultimately delivering an unforgettable portrait of the Syria that is being erased, day by day.