Seven Days in Syria: Dispatches from Syria - Tapa dura

Di Giovanni presents a devastating picture of the horrors of civil war and the disintegration of Syrian society.--Elizabeth Hayford

Necessary, difficult and elating. [Di Giovanni's] reporting from the Syrian revolution and war is clear-eyed and engaged in the best sense - engaged in the human realm rather than the abstractly political. . . . Such reporters as Giovanni, who not only visit but also live (and often die) through wars not their own, are heroic. These are the Marie Colvins, Paul Conroys, Ali Mustafas of journalism, reporters motivated by commitment to the act of witnessing.--Robin Yassin-Kassab

Di Giovanni's work, informed by her extensive experience as a journalist, shows a keen ability to capture violent conflicts from multiple sides...This book, haunted by the international failure to intervene effectively, gives readers an on-the-ground experience of the devastating seasons that followed the promise of the Arab Spring...[Di Giovanni] makes its reality fully tangible and tragic.

With a potent mix of sensitivity and outrage, Di Giovanni relates firsthand accounts of deprivation and suffering from the people caught up in the conflict...[T]heir stories reveal in harrowing detail the horrific nature of the war. The expert perspective of this seasoned war correspondent proves invaluable to understanding Syria today.

Like Imperial Life in the Emerald City, a defining, journalistic portrait of war in Iraq, Seven Days in Syria bears witness to one of the most brutal, internecine conflicts in recent history. Drawing from years of experience covering Syria for Vanity Fair, Newsweek, and the front pages of the New York Times, award-winning journalist Janine di Giovanni now gives us a masterpiece of war reportage, all told through the perspective of seven ordinary people among them a doctor, a nun, a musician, and a student. What emerges is an extraordinary picture of the devastating human consequences of armed conflict, one that charts an apocalyptic but at times tender story of life in a jihadist war zone. Recalling celebrated works by Ryszard Kapu cinski, Philip Gourevitch, and Anne Applebaum, Seven Days in Syria, through its unflinching account of a nation on the brink of disintegration, becomes an unforgettable testament to resilience in the face of nihilistic human debasement."