Syria after Assad?
A conversation with authors Wendy Pearlman and Abdullah Chahin
After 54 years of brutal dictatorship and 14 years of merciless war, Syrians have achieved their freedom. How did Syria get here? What challenges and opportunities lie ahead? Join us for a special conversation between two Chicago-area authors deeply engaged in studying, understanding, and writing about Syria and Syrian experiences.
Northwestern University Professor Wendy Pearlman has conducted interviews with more than 550 displaced Syrians around the world and shares their voices in her three books, We Crossed A Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria (2017, longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence), The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora (2024, longlisted for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize), and Muzoon: A Syrian Refugee Speaks Out (2023, selected for the Rise Booklist of Rise from the Feminist Task Force of the American Library Association).
Dr. Abullah Chahin is a physician, professor of medicine, human rights activist, and writer. He is the author of Nawãr (Savages): Transformation of Individual and Collective Consciousness in Totalitarian Regimes in Syrian Society (2024) and founder of Nashir App, a platform to produce and encourage Arabic-language audio books.
In this event, Pearlman and Chahin share their books, discuss events in Syria since the fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, and reflect on their own visits to Syria this year.
Accessibility: This event is hosted at the bookstore, which is a wheelchair accessible space. Masks are required. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis. To request ASL interpretation for this event, please email events@womenandchildrenfirst.com by no later than 14 days before the event. For other questions or access needs, please email events@womenandchildrenfirst.com.
