WAR, LOSS, AND ALIENATION: THE BEEKEEPER OF ALEPPO
WAR, LOSS, AND ALIENATION: THE BEEKEEPER OF ALEPPO

Summary/Abstract: Christy Lefteri’s novel, The Beekeeper of Aleppo (2019), represents, in fictional form, urgent contemporary matters, such as immigration, war, displacement, and alienation. The narrative is based on experiences of real refugees in Athens, where the author worked with them as a volunteer in 2016 and 2017. By insightfully presenting the contrast between life before the war, the hardships they face when forced to leave home, and the implications this life event entails, Lefteri challenges the contemporary prevalent assumptions, based mainly on superficial knowledge and narrow thinking, according to which immigrants in general, and war refugees, in particular, have a choice. The alternative this part of humanity faces is between remaining and die, or taking the chance and travelling, often in inhuman conditions, to a country that might offer them security. By skilfully employing a simple narrative style and by inserting geographical and temporal shifts between the present (in England) and the past (in Aleppo, or during the journey to England), Lefteri questions complex realities and challenges the reader to revise his/her unexamined assumptions and, by appealing to the moral dimension of the situation, contributes to the development of the reader’s empathetic imagination.

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