by Virginia Lee
Kersplebedeb
2026, paperback
SKU: 9781989701553
“We did not emerge because of ISIS, and we will not disappear when ISIS is gone. Our existence is rooted in a philosophy of free and democratic life." -- Viyan, YPJ
In March 2025, radio journalist Virginia Lee was invited by Kurdish-led women's group Kongra star to join a delegation of women to tour the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES)--a radical experiment in democracy and women's empowerment better known to much of the world as Rojava.
In the wake of the victory of the Islamist HTS over the Ba'athist regime of Bashar al-Assad just three months prior, Virginia encounters a diverse array of people, from the highest levels of the region's political and military structures to disabled veterans and the co-chairs of self-managed refugee camps. Women and men, Kurds and Arabs, Muslims and Christians, all united on certain points: commitment to the values of their shared project, pride in what they have achieved, and apprehension about what this new reality will mean for them.
Adapted from the podcast After the Fall: Dispatches from the Women's Revolution, this book also contains full transcripts of all of the interviews Virginia conducted--from members of the YPJ, an all-women army, to elders who have been helping women and girls escape patriarchal violence since such work was a criminal act.
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