The Road from Raqqa: A Story of Brotherhood, Borders, and Belonging

by Jordan Ritter Conn Narrated by Graham Halstead

Overview

Crossing years and continents, the harrowing story of the road to reunion for two Syrian brothers who-despite a homeland at war and an ocean between them-hold fast to the bonds of family.

Runner-Up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize ¿ Riveting . . . a resplendent love letter to an obliterated city.”-The New York Times

“The Road from Raqqa had me gripped from the first page. I couldn't put it down.”-Christy Lefteri, author of The Beekeeper of Aleppo

The Alkasem brothers, Riyad and Bashar, spend their childhood in Raqqa, the Syrian city that would later become the capital of ISIS. As a teenager in the 1980s, Riyad witnesses the devastating aftermath of the Hama massacre-an atrocity that the Hafez al-Assad regime commits upon its people. Wanting to expand his notion of government and justice, Riyad moves to the United States to study law, but his plans are derailed and he eventually falls in love with a Southern belle. They move to a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee, where they raise two sons and where Riyad opens a restaurant-Cafe' Rakka-cooking the food his grandmother used to make. But he finds himself confronted with the darker side of American freedoms: the hardscrabble life of a newly arrived immigrant, enduring bigotry, poverty, and loneliness. Years pass, and at the height of Syria's civil war, fearing for his family's safety halfway across the world, he risks his own life by making a dangerous trip back to Raqqa. 

Bashar, meanwhile, in Syria. After his older brother moves to America, Bashar embarks on a brilliant legal career under the same corrupt Assad government that Riyad despises. Reluctant to abandon his comfortable (albeit conflicted) life, he fails to perceive the threat of ISIS until it's nearly too late.

The Road from Raqqa brings us into the lives of two brothers bound by their love for each other and for the war-ravaged city they call home. It's about a family caught in the middle of the most significant global events of the new millennium, America's fraught but hopeful relationship to its own immigrants, and the toll of dictatorship and war on everyday families. It's a book that captures all the desperation, tenacity, and hope that come with the revelation that we can find home in one another when the lands of our forefathers fail us.

Editorial Reviews

OCTOBER 2020 - AudioFile

In a sober-voiced narration, Graham Halstead gives this biography of two Syrian brothers, Riyad and Bashar Alkasem, the gravity it deserves. He is measured and steady in conveying the tumult of the brothers’ teenage years as they grew up under the terror of Basar Al-Assad’s regime. Halstead narrates their sense of disorientation as they watch the Syrian civil war unfold on the Internet. He pronounces the Arabic words, names, and places accurately, helping listeners feel more connected to the experiences being described. Those who are interested in learning more about the Syrian conflict, as well Arab immigrant identity in the U.S., will find much to absorb in this well-delivered audiobook. M.R. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

The New York Times Book Review - Jessica Goudeau

Jordan Ritter Conn's riveting debut…is a well-wrought portrait of two brothers, Riyad and Bashar Alkasem, and their journeys out of Syria…Conn pushes beyond simply humanizing the Alkasems; the book portrays Syria and the United States as multifaceted and complex, both capable of generosity and oppression, with histories as interconnected as the brothers' own…As complicated and ever-shifting as their views of Syria and the United States are, the brothers' affection for Raqqa is unwavering. Conn translates their memories into a resplendent love letter to an obliterated city, where Riyad swims as a boy in the Euphrates and gathers recipes from his relatives, and where Bashar poignantly lays out pillows and blankets to look at the stars with his daughters in the courtyard of their family home at night before the bombs drop. The loss of that Raqqa feels unbearable.

Publishers Weekly

05/04/2020

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. (July)

From the Publisher

Jordan Ritter Conn’s riveting debut book, The Road from Raqqa, is a well-wrought portrait of two brothers, Riyad and Bashar Alkasem, and their journeys out of Syria. . . . The book portrays Syria and the United States as multifaceted and complex, both capable of generosity and oppression, with histories as interconnected as the brothers’ own. . . . As complicated and ever-shifting as their views of Syria and the United States are, the brothers’ affection for Raqqa is unwavering. Conn translates their memories into a resplendent love letter to an obliterated city.”—The New York Times

“A work of dazzling emotional power—a gorgeously written exploration of how we cope with seismic loss and how we muster the strength to build again . . . You will come away from this book in awe of its characters’ resilience, as well as grateful for Jordan Ritter Conn’s loving devotion to the art of journalism.”—Brendan I. Koerner, author of The Skies Belong to Us

“Jordan Ritter Conn has constructed an achingly beautiful story that, by some miracle, takes in the epic sweep of the modern Middle East, the continuous whiplash of immigrant life in America, and the depths of brotherly love.”—Steve Fainaru, author of League of Denial

“Stunning . . . Jordan Ritter Conn has taken a true story, in some ways so simple—two brothers taking different paths in a world shattered by politics and war—and layered within it a profound meditation on family, freedom, human resilience, and home.”—Evan Ratliff, author of The Mastermind

“Jordan Ritter Conn writes with a novelist’s grace, giving us both sides of the family’s epic migration story as the brothers find themselves on opposing sides of global conflict and keep trying to find each other again and again, despite the way the world pulls them in different directions. I couldn’t put it down.”—Helen Thorpe, author of The Newcomers

“A poignant debut . . . 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.”—Publishers Weekly

“[Jordan Ritter] Conn’s affecting narrative touches deeply not just on these contrasting immigration issues . . . but also on how the bonds of family and old community can exist even when people are uprooted.”—Kirkus Reviews
 
“The parallel stories of the brothers’ lives are informative and deeply moving. The emotional narrative of their Syrian home will help people better understand why people choose to leave and why others stay.”—Library Journal

Library Journal

05/01/2020

Journalist Conn skillfully interweaves the stories of brothers Riyad and Bashar Alkasem, raised in Raqqa in eastern Syria on the Euphrates River. Riyad emigrated to the United States in the 1980s, seeking educational opportunities. He became Americanized while pursuing business opportunities in California, raised a family with his Tennessee-born wife, and in time became a successful restauranteur in Nashville. His brother Bashar remained in Raqqa, where their father was a respected leader, and built a successful professional and family life. For years, the city was distant from Bashar Assad's control and retained provincial independence as traditional society governed the lives of the brothers' parents and extended family. The outbreak of civil war in 2011 and rise of Daesh (Islamic State) eventually changed life for Raqqa and Bashir's family as violence escalated. Riyad's rare return visits to Raqqa caused him to wonder whether he made the right decision in leaving while Bashir reluctantly reconsiders the future he envisioned in his native city, now engulfed by fearful destruction. VERDICT The parallel stories of the brothers' lives is informative and deeply moving. The emotional narrative of their Syrian home will help readers to better understand why people choose to leave and why others stay.—Charles K. Piehl, Minnesota State Univ., Mankato

OCTOBER 2020 - AudioFile

In a sober-voiced narration, Graham Halstead gives this biography of two Syrian brothers, Riyad and Bashar Alkasem, the gravity it deserves. He is measured and steady in conveying the tumult of the brothers’ teenage years as they grew up under the terror of Basar Al-Assad’s regime. Halstead narrates their sense of disorientation as they watch the Syrian civil war unfold on the Internet. He pronounces the Arabic words, names, and places accurately, helping listeners feel more connected to the experiences being described. Those who are interested in learning more about the Syrian conflict, as well Arab immigrant identity in the U.S., will find much to absorb in this well-delivered audiobook. M.R. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2020-04-13
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.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177204901
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	07/21/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Prologue

They used to tell a story in the desert about an eighteenth-century warrior named Ibrahim, who led an Arab army across the Levant—known long before as Mesopotamia—fighting on horseback and on camel for the Ottoman Empire. Ibrahim was loyal to the Ottomans and ruthless to their enemies, and so the empire’s leaders rewarded him with a gift. It wasn’t much, just a swath of land in the desert, tucked inside the elbow of the Euphrates River, some of the land bare and desolate, some of it green and alive.

Only Ibrahim didn’t care much for land. He was a warrior, not a settler. So he left the land untouched and continued to roam the Levant and to wage battle, uninterested in anyplace where he could not find a fight. Ibrahim had a son named Issa and a grandson named Hamed, also nomadic warriors, and Hamed had a son named Taha. When they would tell this story centuries later, the boys and girls of the desert would speculate that Taha did not like to fight like his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, because if he liked to fight, then he would have continued roaming in search of violence, but instead he came to the land that had now been passed down to him, and he wondered if perhaps he should stay there, if perhaps he should build a life. 

Taha found a spot that he liked. Dangerous tribes inhabited the land’s western and eastern edges, but here in the center was a river and an ancient wall, long ago abandoned, and the river and wall together formed something of a cocoon, and Taha decided that here he would be safe. Here he would stay.

He put up a tent and decided to make coffee. He took a stone rod and used it like a mortar and pestle to smash the beans. When they were fully ground, he mixed them with water he boiled on a fire. He waited.

A breeze wafted in from the Euphrates, carrying the smell of coffee across the desert to small and scattered tribes. They took the smell of the coffee as an invitation. One by one, members of each tribe came to Taha and joined him. Together, they sipped.

Taha asked them to stay. Settle here, he said, and let’s work together, share our resources to build a community. To convince them, he offered pieces of his land. Some said yes, and more tribes came. As the years passed, Taha gave away more pieces of his land until there were twelve subtribes in total, and together they decided that the sliver of land just north of their settlement would be the community land, to be divided among every male descendant of every original founder for as long as their city stood.

A city. Yes. That’s what it was now, with homes and markets and mosques and a school. They called it Raqqa. It would stand for centuries, here on this plot of land passed down from Ibrahim to Issa to Hamed to Taha, and its people would remain close-knit, cloistered as they were and uninterested in the outside world. Yet they would always greet visitors with extravagant welcome, providing warm beds and hearty meals and fresh coffee, just as Taha had once done.

Taha had a son named Jurf, and Jurf had a son named Hammoud, who had a son named Kasem, who had a son named Muhammad, who had a son named Abdul-Rahman, who had several sons, the oldest two of whom he named Riyad and Bashar. And Riyad and Bashar grew up learning the stories of their ancestors and of their city, and they saw themselves as carrying on the traditions passed down from Taha on the land passed down from Ibrahim.

And then one day new warriors arrived, and the people of the city looked overhead to see them, in airplanes sent by leaders in Damascus or Moscow or Washington, D.C. And those warriors dropped bombs, and those bombs pounded the city until it was barely anything more than what Taha had found on his journey through the Levant so many years ago. And Riyad and Bashar wondered what makes a city when its people have fled or died, what makes a home when a house has become rubble, what makes a family when brothers and sisters are sent to scatter across the world.

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