A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea(68)

That same afternoon, my colleagues arranged for one of the other survivors, Shoukri Al-Assoulli, to meet us at our Athens office. Shoukri was in a terrible state when we met with him. The Palestinian National Authority had stopped paying his small monthly stipend due to a lack of funds, and a few days before, in a park in central Athens, members of the right-wing extremist group the Golden Dawn had beaten him and a friend badly because they were foreigners. They both landed in the hospital. He was penniless and broken, and crying as he showed us a photo of the pretty pink bedroom his deceased daughter used to sleep in back in Gaza. Shoukri wanted to share his story, and we agreed that Jowan Akkash, a Syrian journalist he had befriended who was translating for us, would ask him my interview questions when the time was right. This interview, along with another session months later, when Shoukri had returned to Gaza, corroborated further details and added description of what transpired during the boat journey and during the time they struggled for survival at sea.

Once I had finally gathered enough information to write the script for my TED talk, I shared the text with the curators of TEDxThessaloniki, Katerina Biliouri and Elena Papadopoulou, who were immediately convinced that their Greek audience would be deeply moved by Doaa’s story while also gaining a wider understanding of the reasons why so many refugees were dying on their shores. In the lead-up to and aftermath of the event, Katerina and Elena made special efforts to promote the talk. Bruno Giussani, TED’s European director and curator of the TEDGlobal conference, also offered to review the script and provided insightful advice and helpful edits that significantly improved the shape of the script. I am also grateful to Mark Turner, who helped to make the words sing. I rehearsed the talk over and over, and my colleagues, especially Sybella Wilkes, Edith Champagne, Christopher Reardon, Alexandre St-Denis, and Médéric Droz-dit-Busset, served as patient and active audience members for rehearsals and provided lots of feedback. Speaker coach T. J. Walker supported me throughout the process, critiquing rehearsal videos and keeping me on a practice regimen. When I delivered the talk on May 23, 2015, the audience listened in rapt silence, then stood to applaud once I finished. Many were in tears. A fellow speaker and prominent Athens businessman, Alexis Pantazis, was so moved by Doaa’s story that he granted her a scholarship in the name of his company.

I decided to send a link to a video of the talk to literary agent Mollie Glick, then of Foundry Media, now at CAA, who had previously reached out to me about writing a book after she had seen my first refugee-themed TED talk. “Is this a book?” I asked her. Her response was clear: “Yes!” With Mollie’s passionate outreach and strong belief in the timeliness of a refugee story like Doaa’s, we set to work on coming up with a proposal, and she recommended Dorothy Hearst, an experienced nonfiction editor and successful novelist, to help me with the proposal process and the writing. Mollie’s assistant, Joy Fowlkes, who had brought my first TED talk to Mollie’s attention, managed all the contacts in different time zones, and Foundry’s Kirsten Neuhaus secured eight foreign publishers on the basis of the book proposal and is working on more.

My book ended up with Flatiron Books, a division of Macmillan. My editor, Colin Dickerman, impressed me with his interest in human stories that move, educate, and influence readers. Since then, Colin has expertly guided me throughout the writing and marketing process, keeping me to deadlines and encouraging me to write the best book that I had in me. As the manuscript entered its final stages, Flatiron editor Jasmine Faustino significantly improved the flow and form of the text with her sharp and fresh eye for style and structure. Copy editor Steve Boldt and publishing lawyer Michael Cantwell both combed through the final draft for inconsistencies and refined the text to a fine finish.

Revealing part of her story for a short TED talk was already a big deal for Doaa, but exposing entire life story in detail for a book was a frightening prospect. I was deeply convinced that telling her story would help her come to terms with the tragedy and also offer her some much-needed financial support. I was also sure that her story would give readers real insight into the Syrian war, the grueling life that refugees face in neighboring countries, and the factors that drive so many people to risk their lives to cross the Mediterranean to reach the promise of Europe. My colleague Firas Kayal, a fellow Syrian who was deeply moved by Doaa’s ordeal, was instrumental in convincing Doaa and her family that the book was in their best interest and that they could trust me to write it. Doaa’s instinct was to withdraw into her trauma, and Firas helped her to understand how she could help other people by telling her story to the world.

To get the level of detail I needed, it was clear that I needed to work with a collaborator who not only spoke fluent Arabic but who was also sensitive to the plight of the Syrian people. I found that person in Zahra Mackaoui, a video journalist and documentary filmmaker who had worked for UNHCR covering Syrian refugee stories from Lebanon. Zahra has always impressed me with her talent for individual storytelling while painting a wider picture and generating compassion for Syrian refugees suffering and circumstances. She quickly developed a strong relationship with Doaa and her family. Her sensitive and caring approach earned their trust and confidence. Most interviews we conducted together, though some she conducted alone when I was unable to travel—in all, the interviews add up to over seventy hours of conversations. Some sessions were so painful for Doaa that we had to break off and start again the next day. We were the only ones she had spoken to at this level of detail about what had happened, and it seemed to help Doaa to talk about it. Zahra knew how to comfort her when she felt sad and to make her laugh to lighten her mood. Over the seven months we spent working together on the research, Zahra became a dear friend and a mentor to Doaa. The transcripts she worked on, which were translated thanks to Naglaa Abdelmoneim, provided a detailed account of what had happened over Doaa’s life, set vivid scenes, and captured her family’s dialogue. Zahra ensured that the transcripts were complete and coherent, that the time lines were accurate, that any lapses in memory were resolved, and that the emotions of the moment were captured. She also added perceptive commentary and contributed descriptive writing that helped shape the overall narrative and helped fully develop the contours of Doaa’s character.