The Fear of Breathing: Stories from the Syrian Revolution

by Ruth Sherlock, Paul Wood, Zoe Lafferty

Overview

As thousands have been tortured, jailed, maimed or killed by the Syrian regime, The Fear of Breathing is not only a new play based entirely on verbatim reports from inside Syria itself, but is also a hard-hitting evocation of a life or death fight for freedom, experienced from the inside. To uncover these personal stories from the uprising, award-winning jourbanalists Paul Wood and Ruth Sherlock, together with theatre director Zoe Lafferty, travelled into Syria covertly, circumventing the ban on jourbanalists and restrictions on movement for all non-Syrians. They spoke to protesters as well as citizens who love President Bashar al-Assad and are terrified of a future without him.

Featuring verbatim scenes, interviews, stories and film footage, The Fear of Breathing is a powerful and profoundly disturbing portrait of a revolution struggling to survive.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781849434195
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	02/26/2013
Series:	Oberon Modern Plays
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	88
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Ruth Sherlock has just been named 'Young Jourbanalist of the Year' in the 2012 British Press Awards. She has been nominated for the prestigious Gaby Rado Memorial Award, given by Amnesty International for outstanding coverage of human rights.

Paul Wood has covered a dozen wars in fifteen years as a BBC foreign correspondent. During the Syrian uprising, he was three times smuggled across the border and into the city of Homs and produced Homs – Jourbaney into Hell for BBC's Panorama.

Zoe Lafferty has worked as a director, assistant director and playwright for theatre in Afghanistan, the UK, New York, Palestine and Europe, and is an Associate Director of the Freedom Theatre Palestine.

Editorial Reviews

Genuinely revealing - the first-hand testimony is riveting - it leaves one with a heightened awareness of how a basic desire for human freedoms escalated into a sectarian civil war.” —Guardian

“This project primarily trusts in the words gathered to grip and inform us - it can hardly be bettered - Essential viewing” —Telegraph

“"Fearless" is a word bandied about too much in the field of new playwriting, often meaning little more than the mild bucking of some trend. But genuine courage went into the compiling of The Fear of Breathing - enlightening and horrifying” —Independent

From the Publisher