The Beekeeper of Aleppo

The civil war in Syria is the setting and reason for the terrible events that drive Nuri and Afra to flee their homeland. The transformation of their lives from a peaceful family existence to a tragic nightmare occurs as the bombs and soldiers get closer and closer to their home on the outskirts of Aleppo. Nuri makes little direct reference to the religious and political clashes or battles in the war, only describing Aleppo as divided into the two sides by the river. Bashar al-Assad and Daesh are mentioned briefly. The references to war in the book are more universal, and the protagonists’ experiences serve to represent those of many victims of war, internationally and throughout history.

Nuri’s story for Mohammed about the blind kings is clearly an allegory of what happens to a country when leaders are ignorant and countries are poorly managed: “Every king who ever ruled this place was blind, in one way or another, so that they left it full of riches and devoid of life” (141). The City of Brass which Nuri describes, with its mosques and domes and bazaars, sounds like his description of Aleppo, and it is a city empty of people and of life.