Christy Lefteri The Beekeeper of Aleppo

 

UN statistics inform us of 80 million displaced people worldwide in 2019. The problems surrounding such a flood of refugees are depicted daily on our media. It is an overwhelming phenomenon and hard to grasp with all the associated politics. ‘The Beekeeper of Aleppo’ is a fictional story based on well known facts about the tumult in Syria which succeeds in putting faces on what it is to be a 21st century refugee from a war zone. The author Christy Lefteri, a lecturer in creative writing at Brunel University, is the daughter of Cypriot refugees and her book was inspired through her work as a volunteer at a Unicef supported refugee centre in Athens.

Beekeeper Nuri and his artist wife Afra live in Aleppo. Their peaceful life in that beautiful city is destroyed in the Syrian conflict, an unspeakable loss which includes that of a family member and for Afra, now blind, her sight. The book chronicles the couple’s flight to the UK via Turkey and Greece. Nuri’s cousin and fellow beekeeper, Mustafa, already arrived in Yorkshire and teaching beekeeping, provides a focus for their flight through e mail correspondence. Christy Lefteri provides a simple storyline with profound overtones touching the pain of displacement, bereavement and estrangement one from another of the two refugees. If it makes sense of what being a refugee is about it does so by telling the truth whilst depicting the triumph of the human spirit. The author spares a lot of savage detail but enough to build a sympathetic portrait of Nuri and Afra through humiliations endured in Aleppo, on their journey and when they arrive in Britain.


‘The Beekeeper of Aleppo’ is a tale of the reconciliation of Nuri and Afra pulled apart by the tragedy yet drawn together in mutual support on their journey. Throughout the book we are made aware of the flight of bees, with Nuri and Mustafa’s apiary business partnership making a frame for the human flight. Though well written the book is no easy read with its harsh context. The author provides an appealing celebration of human resilience whilst depicting the dreadful consequences for individuals of instability in their homeland.


Christy Lefteri  The Beekeeper of Aleppo

Manilla Press 2019 £8.99 ISBN 978-1838770013 400pp

Reviewed by Canon Dr John Twisleton     1 January 2021

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