From We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled, a collection of interviews with Syrian refugees that were conducted and edited by Wendy Pearlman between 2012 and 2016. The book was published this month by Custom House.

iliyas, dentist, rural hama

Syria looked like a stable country. But it wasn’t real stability. It was a state of terror. Every citizen in Syria was terrified. The regime and the authorities were also terrified. The more responsibility anyone had in the state, the more terrified he was. Brother didn’t trust brother. Children didn’t trust their fathers. If…