The Road from Raqqa

February 1, 2020

With the tensions following the 1982 Hama massacre, Riyad Alkasem left Syria to study law in the United States, then took a different road, marrying and becoming the chef-owner of Nashville's Café Rakka (he's from a family of cheese, butter, and yogurt makers) while battling the loneliness and discrimination immigrants face. Meanwhile, his brother Bashar became a lawyer in the Assad regime, with a comfortable lifestyle if uncomfortable conscience, and as war exploded, Riyad returned home to find him. From rising-star journalist Conn, who first befriended Riyad when he needed a translator.

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May 4, 2020
Journalist Conn makes a poignant debut with this story of two brothers reunited in the midst of Syria’s civil war. Growing up in Raqqa in the 1970s and 1980s, Riyad and his younger brother, Bashar, led privileged lives as sons of the city’s mukhtar. As Riyad got older, however, he became aware of the oppressive nature of Syria’s Ba’ath regime and left in 1990 for California, where he worked minimum wage jobs despite his law degree and struggled to learn English. Meanwhile, Bashar remained in Raqqa, earning his own law degree and caring for his growing family and aging parents. The brothers barely saw each other in the ensuing years, as Riyad married and settled in Tennessee, where he opened a successful Middle Eastern restaurant. Meanwhile, Raqqa becomes a battleground in the fight between Syrian rebels and forces aligned with President Bashar al-Assad. When ISIS enters the conflict, Bashar and his wife and children realize they must flee. Smuggled past ISIS checkpoints and over the Turkish border, they take a small raft across the Aegean Sea to Greece before settling in Germany, where the brothers are reunited when Riyad comes to visit. Fluidly written and emotionally powerful, this page-turner reveals the human cost of war, terrorism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration rhetoric. Readers will find despair and hope in this moving account. Agent: William LoTurco, LoTurco Literary.

May 1, 2020
Syrian brothers take different paths of immigration, neither easy, in this thoughtful account. The Middle East has experienced waves of violence for generations. One came in the 1980s, an early spasm of repression by the Assad regime, which sent Riyad Alkasem on a roundabout path to America. Riyad had studied law, but when he finally landed in Tennessee, he opened a restaurant serving Syrian food--one that proved so popular that, by the end of Ringer staff writer Conn's account, Riyad is planning to open a second location. Meanwhile, his brother Bashar stayed in Syria, became a lawyer, and was on his way to a judgeship when civil war erupted and the brothers' hometown, Raqqa, was seized by the Islamic State group (aka Daesh). "Bashar saw the world as a place filled with the wonders of God's creation," writes Conn. "Daesh saw it only as a place full of things to burn." Riyad's earlier course had led to American citizenship, and he became an ideal immigrant: a hard worker and business owner who contributed strongly to his community. But after 9/11, he was rewarded with one episode of bigoted reaction after another. Bashar's path turned instead to Germany, for in Trump-era America, no Syrians--no Muslims, for that matter--need apply. For Riyad, "Trump emboldened the worst of America," while for Bashar, "Germany is what Riyad has long believed the United States to be: the kind of place Ronald Reagan once called the 'shining city upon a hill.' " Conn's affecting narrative touches deeply not just on these contrasting immigration issues, with the strong implication that Germany's gain is America's loss, but also on how the bonds of family and old community can exist even when people are uprooted. As such, it makes a solid complement to Khaled Khalifa's novel Death Is Hard Work (2019) as a study in how people persist and prevail in a time of terror. A convincing counterargument to anti-immigrant sentiment.

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