Interrogating the Official Syrian History in Hisham and Crabapple’sBrothers of the Gun: A Memoir of the Syrian War

Abstract

This research project analyzes how Marwan Hisham and Molly Crabapple’s Brothers of the Gun: A Memoir of the Syrian Warcounters the official Syrian history.The memoir captures the Syrian war providing marginal issues and revealing thealternative truth in contrastto the official history. For this purpose, the text isinterpreted through new historicist perspective thereby referencing fromHistoriographic Metafiction of Linda Huthceon, Metahistory of Hayden White,Genealogy and History of Michael Foucault, and New Historicisms of LouisMontrose. One of the crucial findings of this research is that it challenges the officialhistory since it provides Syrian regime’s cruelty, suffering of the marginalized people,massacre of common people by the government. Therefore,the memoir problematizesthe official historical representation of the Syrian war because the official historydeliberately excludes facts, suffering and displacement of common people, internalscene of the war, flaws of the government and marginalized issues. Key Words: memoir, Syrian war, historiographic metafiction, genealogy,representation