''War made us all more grown up. I would like to go back to being a little girl so badly,” says one child quoted in the book “Under the Sky of Glass Stars” by Italian journalist Luana Silighini. The fable traces the daily tragedy of war as experienced by Syrian children.
The book is based on actual interviews of Syrians and told through children's language to inform on the daily tragedy of war, as well as to provide hope. It is told in letters by the protagonist Kamar to her friend Sira. Kamar is a Syrian girl who flees through the war-wracked country from Aleppo to Damascus. ''Kamar lives under a tunnel dug 17 meters underground. The war is suffered there, but they fight against it,'' Silighini says. And so, despite the fact that the war takes everything away, ''those tunnels become a metaphor for hope.”
During her years-long trip across Syria, Kamar collects pieces of colored glass. She then attaches them to the ceiling of the roof, making a sky of stars lit by the faint light of a candle. This, the author of the fable says, is ''a symbol of hope for every Syrian, of being able to go back and see what the war has shattered shine again.'' The title "Under the Sky of Glass Stars" is a summary of the hope that I felt in the interviews conducted to tell the story, its author Luana Silighini said.
Fable to answer children's questions
The idea of a fable was sparked by children's questions in schools. ''How are we like and not like the children who land on our coasts? Where do they come from? Why do they flee? Will they ever go back? I tried to answer these questions through this story,'' Silighini said.
The story starts from an incident two years ago, when a Jordanian pilot was burned alive in a cage by the Islamic state (ISIS). ''After that, some Syrian families recorded footage of their children trapped in a cage with a flame nearby, to draw attention to the death of innocents,'' she said. This is the beginning to the story of Kamar and her friend, through letters and thoughts of a life on the road for salvation.
Reportage turned into a fable
The work on the book was lengthy and carried out in different phases. The author talked to men and women in refugee camps and camps for internally displaced persons, in Roman tombs. They were often lacking medicine and electricity, the author says.
UNICEF data show that in 2016 alone, some 800 Syrian children died due to the ongoing conflict in the country. The fable does not have a moral but it does have an ending that leads to hope. ''The aim is to tell the truth as it is. It is not a fable with an imaginary ending. I tried to speak to children as if they were sons and daughters, with simplicity,'' she said.
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