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In 2013, hundreds of journalists rush to Damascus after a chemical weapons attack brings the war in Syria to the front page. When Obama decides not to bomb, they go, leaving behind them 200,000 estimated victims and more than half of the 22 million population dispersed or refugeed. Francesca Borri is a journalist. But she does not leave. For months she covers the battle of Aleppo as a freelance reporter. And she quickly realises the truth of what it means to report a war. This haunting and shocking memoir exposes the reality of war and pays homage to its many victims.

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"There is no greater nor more harrowing drama on our watch than the slow death of the great city of Aleppo. But very few have the courage and will to go there and bear witness to the abuse of power and violence, and the endless suffering of the innocent. Francesca Borri has done what we, the news organizations, the diplomats, and the aid groups have failed to do: documenting, for the present and the future, the naked truth of how we still fail to protect and assist hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children in the ancient city of Aleppo." -Jan Egeland, Norwegian Refugee Council

"Francesca Borri´s work is a brutal poetry of witness. Combining factual reportage with emotionally devastating prose she pulls the reader deep into the trauma of Syria with unmatched skill and a necessary cynicism." -Omar Robert Hamilton, filmmaker

"In this harrowing account of the Syrian Civil War, Italian journalist Borri describes the grim year she spent in Aleppo, having arrived a year after the 2011 uprising began. [. . .] There is good journalism here, which falls under the heading of an intrepid reporter going to war: a vivid, but often impressionistic-even stream-of-consciousness-account of death-defying adventures on Syrian battlefields during which Borri shares the miseries of her subjects and the terrible destruction and loss." -Publishers Weekly

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FRANCESCA BORRI was born in Italy in 1980. She holds a Master´s in International Relations, a Master´s in Human Rights, and a Bachelor´s in Philosophy of Law. After a first experience in the Balkans, she worked in the Middle East as a human rights officer. She turned to journalism in February 2012 to cover the war in Syria. She is the author of three books, on Kosovo (2008), Israel and Palestine (2010), and Aleppo (2014).

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