Wider reading

Behind the Sun

When her brother Yusuf is disappeared by the Assad regime, Shams is torn from the normality of her routine by her desperation to find out who betrayed him.

The feared Branch 290 has been watching Shams’ family for weeks and she suspects someone close has been passing them information. But if there are betrayers amongst her circle, are they simply acting to save themselves, or are they settling long-held grudges? 

Amidst the brutality and chaos, Shams no longer knows who she can trust. The Syrian revolution is at the door and Aleppo is the latest battleground.

How can you know if someone is loyal and trustworthy or playing an elaborate game of deceit? How do people behave when they are forced into the darkest and most dangerous of circumstances?

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The Arab Spring Five Years On

MEMO Publishers. Forward by Ramzy Baroud

Why did people power overcome despots in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen but meet such fierce resistance in Syria? Why did the British government side with street protesters in Libya but with the regime in Bahrain? Why did the Arab Spring fail to reach Occupied Palestinian Territory? What change did it bring to the besieged Gaza Strip?

Whilst the mainstream media fix their gaze on Daesh, this anthology brings together authors, journalists, activists and academics to answer these questions and delve deeper into the Arab Spring protests half a decade since they first flared in the region.

From Syria’s courageous civil society movement to women’s central role in the revolution, ‘The Arab Spring 5 Years On’ offers an alternative analysis of the democratic uprisings and their aftermath.

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No Way to Gaza

MEMO Publishers. Forward by Haydee Dijkstal

A group of Brazilian filmakers on an academic mission attempt to reach the Gaza Strip via Egypt. What was supposed to be an alternative route to the Israeli-controlled Erez Crossing, which allows only accredited journalists and humanitarian organisations to pass, soon became a dangerous adventure into the depths of Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi's dictatorship and his controversial war on terror in the Sinai Peninsula.

This chronicle, which gathers the group's anecdotes and adventures, also tells the story of the Palestinians who risk everything to get to their homeland. It exposes an Egypt that, after the seed of its first democratic experiment was sown in 2011, has buried the voices of hope that once echoed from Tahrir Square in the days of the Arab Spring.

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