Heirs of Silence

Abeer Esber

In departure, places multiply, ports and airports spread their arms and swallow the departed before spitting them out into the frost of the cities.
The Syrian Qudsi family has adapted to Montreal's snow, but the Homs sun still haunts its members like a deferred mine, or a stubborn dream.
Syrian writer Abir Dagher Esber follows the Qudsi family through their migrations between Homs, Nice, and Montreal, going back far into the family's history, particularly the biographies of its women. "Heirs of Silence" is a memoir intertwined with places, lives, and emotions. Narrated by Sami, he reveals the transformations of his relatives—Nana, Jano, Victoria, and others—about their innermost thoughts, destinies, and exiles. He describes their depressive tendencies that exhausted him. He describes his nephew, Hassan, whom he tried to save but failed. He describes the exiles that promise salvation, but from which no one escapes.
What salvation is there in an exile that seems more like an internal defect than a geographical migration?