Aras initially perceives the Syrian revolution from a distance; born in Aleppo, he grew up in Germany and was in his first semester of law school in 2011. But as the violence in Syria escalates, the conflict becomes more and more a part of his everyday life. In the lecture hall and at the immigration office, during an internship in Jordan or as a guest on a political talk show, he experiences the anniversary of the revolution anew every year as an interplay between reality and imagination.
In her impressive debut novel, Luna Ali tells how the violence in Syria inscribes itself in the life, actions and language of her protagonist. And so "There Were Days" poses urgent questions about the meaning of political action and collective desire in our present.
"Luna Ali's novel is poetic and formally innovative" - tagesspiegel.de, Teresa Rübel
"multi-layered and linguistically exceptional" - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Amira El Ahl
"Luna Ali creates her very own attraction and accessibility, her very own verbalisation." - Deutschlandfunk Kultur - Lesart, Lara Sielmann
"Luna Ali demonstrates her narrative skills here in a polyphonic and subtle way [...] how skilfully she has thought through her first novel" - Berliner Zeitung, Maryam Aras
