Tarif Youssef-Agha

The Chronicles of the Syrian Revolution Tarif Youssef-Agha

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.