The Chronicles of the Syrian Revolution

About the Book

This book is simply the memoir of the Syrian Revolution in its six-year journey, all through the eyes of a Syrian poet who lived his youth in the capital city of Damascus. Beginning on the first Friday after the revolution started and every Friday thereafter, the Syrians made it a habit, taking to the streets to demonstrate against the regime. They also gave names to those Fridays to reflect the current events. The first one was the Friday of Dignity (3/18/11), then Friday of Glory (3/25/11), Friday of Martyrs (4/1/11), Friday of Withstanding (4/8/11), Friday of Insistence (4/15/11), and so on until today, which sums up to more than three hundred Fridays. The author started firing poems in support of the revolution and also to document its events week after week for the next six years. He managed to translate almost half of them to put in this book. Listing the poems in order takes the reader on a journey throughout the ups and downs of the revolution and helps him to understand what happened, when, and why. Since the author is antidictatorship and prodemocracy, his writings are not only full of fury and power, confidence, and hope, but also satire and wit, which characterize the people of that historic city.

About the Author

The Author at a Glance Tarif Youssef-Agha Tarif was born in Damascus, Syria, in 1957. He started writing short stories and articles in his early years of elementary school and poetry in his college years. He earned a BS degree in engineering from Damascus University. After a number of encounters with the brutal Syrian dictatorship regime, he decided that Syria was not a safe country to live in. He moved to the United States in the eighties and restarted his life from scratch. He organized four poetry recital events in Houston in the years 2009 and 2010, glorifying the civilization, history, and culture of his nation. As soon as the Arab Spring revolutions started late 2010, he instantly moved to their side and documented them one by one and step by step with his writings. A few days after the Syrian revolution was born on March 15, 2011, he wrote a letter to the Syrian ambassador in DC, criticizing the brutal way the Syrian regime dealt with the peaceful demonstrators and urging him to use his influence to stop the massacres there. That letter spread fast over the Net and inspired others to talk out. After a few days, his picture, name, and that letter were granted a space on “The Syrian Revolution List of Honor.” His contribution to the Arab Spring includes publishing a book titled A Journey around the Arab-Spring Revolutions in 2015, writing hundreds of poems and articles, organizing poetry recitals, and participating in a number of celebrations, national conferences, and events where he was introduced as “the Poet of the Arab Revolutions.” Follow him on Facebook and YouTube: Tarif Youssef-Agha. Visit his page @ https://sites.google.com/site/tarifspoetry.