“Nestled among half-ruined buildings were the headquarters of institutions previously unknown to Saraqib: a poetry forum, a comedy troupe, a theatre company. Inspired by Bertolt Brecht, an ensemble of actors staged plays that broke the fourth wall, drawing the audience into tales that offered pointed critiques of war profiteering and other injustices. An activist collective painted over bullet-scarred walls around town, daubing the crumbling concrete in luminous greens and blues, and inscribing them with philosophical musings and fragments of verse. Before long, the town’s walls were covered in messages to lost loved ones, and locals began to call the initiative Lovers’ Notebooks. A wall near Hossein’s home was painted with a verse from the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish: ‘We’re alive, we’re here, and the dream continues.’”

Anand Gopal, Syria’s Last Bastion of Freedom, The New Yorker (10 December 2018)