Ascension to Death

by Mamdouh Azzam, Max Weiss (Translation)

Ascension to Death  is the first work of acclaimed Syrian writer Mamdouh Azzam to be published in English. Set against the backdrop of a conservative Druze region of southern Syria, this is the tragic story of the orphan Salma, who falls in love with a boy from her village but is then forced into an arranged marriage.

The controller of Salma’s fate is her tyrannical uncle, who, as her guardian and a powerful community leader with governmental ties, is all too pleased to unload the burden of his brother’s daughter onto the first man to propose. As Salma desperately tries to escape the marriage, the novel follows her attempt to flee with her lover. But after her family colludes with the authorities against her, Salma finds herself trapped in a nightmarish ordeal of imprisonment, torture, and abandonment.

One of the most beloved Syrian novels of our time, Ascension to Death is a dark, inventive, and unflinchingly honest look at both the best and the worst to be found in human nature and our modern world.

112 pages, Paperback

First published June 12, 2015

Reviews

[Ronan Doyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tragic sense of intractability leaves this to feel almost unbearably bleak. Azzam has fleshed out a little microcosm of Syrian Druze society whose individual's misery feeds into a collective oppression. It's a political piece grounded in the impact on well-defined characters: that he leads with the most difficult chapter leaves all that comes after to feel all the pettier, crueller, more egregiously and avoidably inhuman.

[K's Bognoter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brutal og næsten ubærlig kortroman om patriarkalsk undertrykkelse af kvinder og kvinders seksualitet i syriske landsbysamfund. Vægtig og vigtig for sine temaer, kompositorisk interessant, men også unødigt forvirrende og i sidste ende lidt kedelig.
Læs min anmeldelse på K’s bognoter: https://bognoter.dk/2022/10/05/mamdou...