The Letters of Aleppo

“Les lettres d’Alep”, in its original French title, was published by “L’Harmattan” Publishing House in March 2018. In October 2020 the Italian version was published under the title “Lettere da Aleppo” by L’Harmattan Italia. In Spain, Ediciones Khaf, of the Luis Vives Publishing Group, published the Spanish version this year with the title: “Cartas de Alepo“.

The authors, both from Aleppo, are  Doctor Nabil Antaki and Brother Georges Sabé.

This intense correspondence, all collected on the site of the Institute, is the passionate chronicle of two characters who chose to live in a battered city, Aleppo, facing the Syrian civil war with the weapons of solidarity and brotherhood. Their testimonies allow the reader to follow, almost live, the painful daily life of a population that struggles with a conflict that has disrupted its existence for many years.

July 2012

After a year and a half of fierce war in Syria, the country is in tatters; half of Aleppo, Syria’s second city and economic capital, is invaded by rebels, causing the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people and the exodus of an equal number. The authors, Nabil and H. Georges Sabé, decided to stay in the city and, during the following years of war, they wrote, more or less regularly, letters to their friends.

The letters

The Letters of Aleppo outline a picture of the situation and tell of the suffering of the displaced, the misery of the poor, the anguish of the inhabitants and the atrocity of the war; they also describe their response to these dramas: through compassion, accompaniment, solidarity and the gift of themselves and their association “Les Maristes Bleus”.

This book aims to be a testimony of solidarity, an act of faith, a message of hope and a hymn of love.