Silence is a Sense: ‘Lyrical, moving, revealing’ - Tracy Chevalier

The young Syrian narrator of this impressive second novel by Layla AlAmmar has fled the violence in Aleppo. Having negotiated further horrors in crossing Europe, she has sought asylum in Britain, where she now lives, traumatised into muteness, in a flat on a medium-rise council estate, location unnamed.Educated and creative, she emails pieces about her experiences with the by-line ‘The Voiceless’ to a news magazine, which presses her for more and wants to know her name. In the meantime, the young woman passes the time by watching the occupants of flats in other blocks as they go about their lives – laughing, fighting, making up and making out.The success of ‘Silence is a Sense’ hinges on the way the narrator personalises the people she watches, and is increasingly unable to avoid interacting with, in just the same way any reader would, using the accumulation of observations to shape and revise ideas of who these people are and how they think. These musings in turn tell us much about the woman herself and why refusing to speak to the people around her is a plausible, even sensible, emotional response to what she has been through.This is powerful stuff, with the woman’s suffering and self-imposed loneliness set against the hostility of a section of the community against its Muslim neighbours that threatens to burst into flames. Is our protagonist safe in Britain? Well-written and moving.

I struggled at times to get into the book. The various flashbacks, the vagueness of details, the narrative jumping around.But that's the point.It's supposed to be difficult. It's supposed to be confusing. It's supposed to be blunt.The life and experiences of a modern day Syrian refugee is anything but easy. This book provides a piercing and reflective look at the dreadfulness of what the reality is like for countless women and their families. Losing loved ones, murder, rape, violence, abuse. All explored and all contribute to why this is a difficult - but essential - read.What makes this book is the author's remarkable observational talents, how she captures the subtleties of various dynamics and social situations. I feel I need to go through this book again, but this time with a highlighter, going over passages where the words and sentences are injected with so much insight and provoking of deep thought.That this is only the author's second book is staggering considering how the subject matter is dealt with and so emotional and difficult topics are explored. Bravo.The only thing was missing is more detail about buses and trains. Like the number of buses and types of trains the main character took on her journey to England.

Such a clever and emotionally true way to tell stories of refuges and also of everyday people simply (and difficultly) trying to survive. Are we being dismissive of their stories? Are we too overwhelmed to even begin to understand what makes a human endure so many difficulties? Are we too comfortable in averting our gaze? The writing is prose and also very melodic. I will remember this book for a very very long time.

If all you have ever read about Syria is from newspapers and magazines, this book will introduce you to the reality of the uprising, government reaction, war and escape. Any country offering asylum, sadly, could summon similar tragedy -- and conversely, comfort -- for Muslim people.

Well written & brutal. There is chaos in the world that many of us can’t imagine, but that makes it no less real.