Three Apples: New language to explain our history
a column by Paul Chaderjian for the Asbarez newspaper Once there was and there was not … Etched somewhere in your memories of childhood must surely be a moment, an image, a fleeting impression, or a moment of you in your yesteryear buying a book or borrowing one from the library. Etched inexplicably in my memory is this one moment at a bookshop in Damascus, Syria –Cleopatra’s wedding present. This Twilight Zone-ish moment is one of my dad buying three books in English for me, of the polluted stench of spent fuels in the air, the dozens of whizzing scooters feet away, traffic horns, jets flying above, and the buzzing of construction drills above the noises of hawkers and street peddlers. In that moment and since my earliest memories, there was something special about books. Perhaps it’s a cultural or generational thing, but books were cherished, handled carefully, and were more important than our Matchbox cars and other toys. The printed word, hardbound, softbound – cov...