We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled
Voices from Syria
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Narrated by:
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Erin Bennett
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Assaf Cohen
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Susan Nezami
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By:
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Wendy Pearlman
About this listen
Reminiscent of the work of Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, an astonishing collection of intimate wartime testimonies and poetic fragments from a cross-section of Syrians whose lives have been transformed by revolution, war, and flight.
Against the backdrop of the wave of demonstrations known as the Arab Spring, in 2011 hundreds of thousands of Syrians took to the streets demanding freedom, democracy, and human rights. The government's ferocious response, and the refusal of the demonstrators to back down, sparked a brutal civil war that over the past five years has escalated into the worst humanitarian catastrophe of our times.
Yet despite all the reporting, the video, and the wrenching photography, the stories of ordinary Syrians remain unheard, while the stories told about them have been distorted by broad-brush dread and political expediency. This fierce and poignant collection changes that. Based on interviews with hundreds of displaced Syrians conducted over four years across the Middle East and Europe, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled is a breathtaking mosaic of firsthand testimonials from the front lines. Some of the testimonies are eloquent narratives that could stand alone as short stories; others are only a few sentences, poetic and aphoristic. Together, they cohere into an unforgettable chronicle that is a testament not only to the power of storytelling but to the strength of those who face darkness with hope, courage, and moral conviction.
©2017 Wendy Pearlman (P)2017 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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- By BL Lucas on 04-11-12
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The Morning They Came for Us
- Dispatches from Syria
- By: Janine di Giovanni
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Doing for Syria what Imperial Life in the Emerald City did for the war in Iraq, The Morning They Came for Us 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 gives us a tour de force of war reportage, all told through the perspective of ordinary people.
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Bearing Witness to the Brutalities of War
- By Theo Horesh on 06-07-18
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No Escape
- The True Story of China's Genocide of the Uyghurs
- By: Nury Turkel
- Narrated by: Stewart Lang
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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A powerful memoir by Nury Turkel lays bare China’s repression of the Uyghur people. Turkel is cofounder and board chair of the Uyghur Human Rights Project and a commissioner for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
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Powerfully Provocative
- By Amazon Customer on 06-01-22
By: Nury Turkel
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In Order to Live
- A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
- By: Yeonmi Park
- Narrated by: Eji Kim
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In In Order to Live, Yeonmi Park shines a light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Korea - and to freedom.
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Wow. What a story!
- By Jfm on 02-01-16
By: Yeonmi Park
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The Home That Was Our Country
- By: Alia Malek
- Narrated by: Alia Malek
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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At the Arab Spring's hopeful start, Alia Malek returned to Damascus to reclaim her grandmother's apartment, which had been lost to her family since Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970. Its loss was central to her parents' decision to make their lives in America. In chronicling the people who lived in the Tahaan building, past and present, Alia portrays the Syrians—the Muslims, Christians, Jews, Armenians, and Kurds—who worked, loved, and suffered in close quarters, mirroring the political shifts in their country
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Syria as never read before
- By rami hachwi on 09-17-18
By: Alia Malek
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Code Name: Johnny Walker
- The Extraordinary Story of the Iraqi Who Risked Everything to Fight with the U.S. Navy SEALs
- By: Johnny Walker, Jim DeFelice
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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>In this illuminating and informative memoir, an Iraqi translator who risked his life working with American Sniper author Chris Kyle and the Navy SEALs tells his remarkable and inspiring story, offering a refreshing new perspective on the Iraq War. As the insurgency in Iraq intensified following the American invasion, U.S. Navy SEALs were called upon to root terrorists from their lairs. Unsure of the local neighborhoods and unable to speak the local languages, they came to rely on one man to guide them and watch their backs. He was a "terp" - an interpreter - with a job so dangerous they couldn't even use his real name.
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Outstanding and real
- By Noel C. Stanhope on 06-05-14
By: Johnny Walker, and others
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The Accountant's Story
- Inside the Violent World of the Medellín Cartel
- By: Roberto Escobar
- Narrated by: Ruben Diaz
- Length: 9 hrs
- Abridged
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In short, this is Pablo Escobar's story in the words of one of his closest confidants, his brother Roberto. It's all here - the brutal violence inside the world of the drug cartel, dealing with American drug forces and the CIA, the problems the Escobars faced when going up against the Colombian mafia, even Pablo's moments of kindness and compassion. As Roberto points out, although many people view Escobar as a monster, thousands still visit his grave every year to mourn him, and revere him as a savior.
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get the unabridged version
- By Erwin Tenorio on 08-13-09
By: Roberto Escobar
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The General's Son
- Journey of an Israeli in Palestine
- By: Miko Peled
- Narrated by: Miko Peled
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The journey that Peled traces in this groundbreaking memoir echoed the trajectory taken 40 years earlier by his father, renowned Israeli general Matti Peled. In The General's Son, Miko Peled tells us about growing up in Jerusalem in the heart of the group that ruled the then-young country, Israel. He takes us with him through his service in the country's military and his subsequent global travels...and then, after his niece's killing, back into the heart of Israel's conflict with the Palestinians.
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Thought Provoking and Powerful
- By FatherRobC on 05-10-16
By: Miko Peled
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They Called Me a Lioness
- A Palestinian Girl's Fight for Freedom
- By: Ahed Tamimi, Dena Takruri
- Narrated by: Dena Takruri
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Ahed Tamimi is a world-renowned Palestinian activist, born and raised in the small West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, which became a center of the resistance to Israeli occupation when an illegal, Jewish-only settlement blocked off its community spring. Tamimi came of age participating in nonviolent demonstrations against this action and the occupation at large. Her global renown reached an apex in December 2017, when, at sixteen years old, she was filmed slapping an Israeli soldier who refused to leave her front yard. The video went viral, and Tamimi was arrested.
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Powerful
- By Mary on 03-30-24
By: Ahed Tamimi, and others
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Infidel
- By: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Narrated by: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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This New York Times best-seller is the astonishing life story of award-winning humanitarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali. A deeply respected advocate for free speech and women's rights, Hirsi Ali also lives under armed protection because of her outspoken criticism of the Islamic faith in which she was raised.
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Tough, Candid Assessment
- By Paul Mullen on 02-18-08
By: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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They Said They Wanted Revolution
- A Memoir of My Parents
- By: Neda Toloui-Semnani
- Narrated by: Neda Toloui-Semnani
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1979, Neda Toloui-Semnani’s parents left the United States for Iran to join the revolution. But the promise of those early heady days in Tehran was warped by the rise of the Islamic Republic. With the new regime came international isolation, cultural devastation, and profound personal loss for Neda. Her father was arrested and her mother was forced to make a desperate escape, pregnant and with Neda in tow.
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I learned so much. Great pacing, felt like I time-traveled
- By Jess Fuchs on 02-07-22
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Keeping Hope Alive
- One Woman: 90,000 Lives Changed
- By: Hawa Abdi, Sarah J. Robbins
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Dr. Hawa Abdi, "the Mother Teresa of Somalia" and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, is the founder of a massive camp for internally displaced people located a few miles from war-torn Mogadishu, Somalia. Since 1991, when the Somali government collapsed, famine struck, and aid groups fled, she has dedicated herself to providing help for people whose lives have been shattered by violence and poverty.
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How Refreshing
- By Jean Watz on 07-21-14
By: Hawa Abdi, and others
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Preemptive Love
- Pursuing Peace One Heart at a Time
- By: Jeremy Courtney
- Narrated by: Jeremy Courtney
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In the middle of the Iraq War, Jeremy and Jessica Courtney found themselves with their two children caught up in the turmoil, just hoping to make a difference. After an encounter with a father whose little girl was dying from a heart defect, they began to investigate options for helping and learned that untold thousands of children across Iraq were in similar need, waiting in line for heart surgery in a country without a qualified heart surgeon.
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Recommended Highly!
- By Zak on 06-13-18
By: Jeremy Courtney
What listeners say about We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anonymous User
- 04-20-19
Powerful Firsthand Accounts of Syrian Revolution
Just a powerful collection of firsthand accounts of the Syrian Revolution from 2010 to 2016. The simple approach of presenting different stories from people of all walks of life gives a good feel for what the Syria people have experienced and endured. It doesn't try to analyze and comment on the situation. It just presents things in a very human way. You start to relate to the Syrians as we should. Not labelled by a certain stereotype, but as real people. It is a sad, tragic story, but with moments of hope and inspiration.
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- hassan almaat
- 03-29-23
Beautifully written!
This book aims to shed light on the Syrian conflict and give a platform to many Syrian citizens who have lived through the experience first hand, and I think it does an excellent job of it. One note I would say (and this has nothing to do with the book itself) is that the audiobook readers tended to have a very monotone voice which kind of loses some of the emotion and life the book emits. It might not be a problem for others, it just caused me to lose focus at times or feel distant from the stories that the citizens share.
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- toni
- 04-20-18
An important account of the Syrian dilemma
Through the voices of the Syrians who have lived it, left it and want to return to their homeland, this account is a powerful vista of the varied positions of the people who are ‘visitors’ in sheltering countries. The presentation is powerful because it utilizes many readers to transmit the idea of identity.
A must read for the international perspective it imparts.
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- Cyrus Samii
- 05-31-18
Outstanding
This amazing book allows you to bear witness directly to Syrian dissidents’ and dispacees’ very personal accounts of the current crisis. After an introductory historical chapter by Pearlman, the narrative is conveyed through direct, first-person vignette after vignette, offered with no author commentary. Pearlman’s effort is in assembling the vignettes in a sequence that conveys the zeitgeists for dissident or otherwise disempowered segments of Syrian society under the oppression of the prewar Syrian regimes, during the excitement of the Arab Spring, the sense of freedom followed by the horrors of the Syrian revolution and civil war, and then very difficult but at times hopeful life in exile. As a reader you are left to soak in the intimate narratives, story-tellers’ interpretations, and all the attendant emotions. Then you draw your own conclusions. I found the book riveting and highly effective for building understanding what it means to be a dissident or outside the circle of power of Syria’s incumbent Assad regime.
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- A. M.
- 02-12-22
Misses the mark
The author, a political science professor in Middle East studies, neglected to mention that Assad enabled the terrorist ratlines through Syria and into Iraq to cause mayhem on behalf of Sunnis and its benefactor, Iran. The impetus for the "Arab Spring" in Syria was the logistics train that had already been set up by Assad, a ready-made terrorist force. In essence, the Syrian civil war was Assad's self-inflicted blowback.
The stories of individual hardship are enlightening and confirming, but only provide a few small pieces of the puzzle.
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