The Beekeeper of Aleppo: A Novel
This unforgettable novel puts human faces on the Syrian war with the immigrant story of a beekeeper, his wife, and the triumph of spirit when the world becomes unrecognizable.
“A beautifully crafted novel of international significance that has the capacity to have us open our eyes and see.”—Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz
WINNER OF THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE • FINALIST FOR THE DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLE
Nuri is a beekeeper and Afra, his wife, is an artist. Mornings, Nuri rises early to hear the call to prayer before driving to his hives in the countryside. On weekends, Afra sells her colorful landscape paintings at the open-air market. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the hills of the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo—until the unthinkable happens. When all they love is destroyed by war, Nuri knows they have no choice except to leave their home. But escaping Syria will be no easy task: Afra has lost her sight, leaving Nuri to navigate her grief as well as a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece toward an uncertain future in Britain.
Nuri is sustained only by the knowledge that waiting for them is his cousin Mustafa, who has started an apiary in Yorkshire and is teaching fellow refugees beekeeping. As Nuri and Afra travel through a broken world, they must confront not only the pain of their own unspeakable loss but dangers that would overwhelm even the bravest souls. Above all, they must make the difficult journey back to each other, a path once so familiar yet rendered foreign by the heartache of displacement.
Moving, intimate, and beautifully written, The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a book for our times: a novel that at once reminds us that the most peaceful and ordinary lives can be utterly upended in unimaginable ways and brings a journey in faraway lands close to home, never to be forgotten.
Praise for The Beekeeper of Aleppo
“This book dips below the deafening headlines, and tells a true story with subtlety and power.”—Esther Freud, author of Mr. Mac and Me
“This compelling tale had me gripped with its compassion, its sensual style, and its onward and lively urge for resolution.”—Daljit Nagra, author of British Museum
“This novel speaks to so much that is happening in the world today. It’s intelligent, thoughtful, and relevant, but very importantly it is accessible. I’m recommending this book to everyone I care about.”—Benjamin Zephaniah, author of Refugee Boy
“A beautifully crafted novel of international significance that has the capacity to have us open our eyes and see.”—Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz
WINNER OF THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE • FINALIST FOR THE DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLE
Nuri is a beekeeper and Afra, his wife, is an artist. Mornings, Nuri rises early to hear the call to prayer before driving to his hives in the countryside. On weekends, Afra sells her colorful landscape paintings at the open-air market. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the hills of the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo—until the unthinkable happens. When all they love is destroyed by war, Nuri knows they have no choice except to leave their home. But escaping Syria will be no easy task: Afra has lost her sight, leaving Nuri to navigate her grief as well as a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece toward an uncertain future in Britain.
Nuri is sustained only by the knowledge that waiting for them is his cousin Mustafa, who has started an apiary in Yorkshire and is teaching fellow refugees beekeeping. As Nuri and Afra travel through a broken world, they must confront not only the pain of their own unspeakable loss but dangers that would overwhelm even the bravest souls. Above all, they must make the difficult journey back to each other, a path once so familiar yet rendered foreign by the heartache of displacement.
Moving, intimate, and beautifully written, The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a book for our times: a novel that at once reminds us that the most peaceful and ordinary lives can be utterly upended in unimaginable ways and brings a journey in faraway lands close to home, never to be forgotten.
Praise for The Beekeeper of Aleppo
“This book dips below the deafening headlines, and tells a true story with subtlety and power.”—Esther Freud, author of Mr. Mac and Me
“This compelling tale had me gripped with its compassion, its sensual style, and its onward and lively urge for resolution.”—Daljit Nagra, author of British Museum
“This novel speaks to so much that is happening in the world today. It’s intelligent, thoughtful, and relevant, but very importantly it is accessible. I’m recommending this book to everyone I care about.”—Benjamin Zephaniah, author of Refugee Boy
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Community Reviews
“I am scared of my wife’s eyes. She can’t see out and no one can see in.”
This heartbreaking opening will settle on us, like a feather drifting into our hearts. War is traumatic and soul-destroying, it says. It creates barbaric monsters who shoot and bomb with indifference. Mothers robbed of the children they have borne. Fathers helpless to console them as they, too, are breaking.
I was drawn to this book, as I knew it would bring the perspective of an experienced eye on the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time; the author’s family faced this need to find hope in a new world. I am also a beekeeper, and I know these gentle creatures are a symbol of what is possible when we work as one. A dream that is slipping beyond our grasps in a world that has become fractured and polarized.
This book follows the journey of Nuri and Afra who are forced to flee Syria under threat of their lives. Nuri’s cousin Mustafa has gone ahead of them and knows the dangerous and difficult journey that is ahead. Afra’s trauma blinds her, reality is like shifting sands for Nuri, but they don’t have the luxury of time to come to terms with their personal tragedy, to heal. As they approach the Turkish border, Nuri looks back. “I shouldn’t have, but I turned away from the crowd of people and looked back into the darkness at the land I was leaving. I saw the opening between the trees, the path that could take me back the way I came.” But for Nuri and so many others, there was nothing left to turn back to.
As they continue on their journey, we see the hardships the refugees must face. Fear, hunger, helplessness. There are people who will exploit them, befriending the young, giving them money and shoes, things they desperately need. Once indebted, they are forced to do unthinkable things to pay back these appalling men for what they thought had been charity.
Nuri sits in a garden remembering the humming of his bees. The sound to him is peace, a time when Aleppo was his home and the bees toiled for he and his family, for Mustafa’s. When they were safe, happy, sharing in each other’s lives. He hears buzzing. At his feet is a bee, its wings so deformed by a parasitic mite that it is crippled, unable to find food. This bee will not survive without him, without others who are also awaiting hope. The refugees will support this bee it in its helplessness, a symbol upon which we all should contemplate.
This story is what we search for in literary fiction. Lefteri has set a bar that others can only hope to reach.
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Thought provoking, a little too much description in parts. Wonderful to put a human face to an overwhelming crisis.
The author after serving as a volunteer assisting refugees writes an historical novel of Afghanistan refugees who flee the Taliban as there village is invaded by foreigners. I initially found it difficult to read because the author bounces from the main character’s recent recollection of Afghanistan and his present day survival all the while caring for his invalid wife. In the end after very frightful experiences the main character is reunited with a distant relative in England. It’s a journey of survival.
Quite an emotional read through the life of war immigrants. The details and description take you along in their journey from Syria to England and through how their life changed forever.
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