Bulbul, a man in his forties, accepts his fathers last wish, to get buried in his hometown near Aleppo, in the grave of his sister Laila. After the death, Bulbul catches up his two siblings and they start their journey from Damaskus to Aleppo, through the present war, with the corpse of their father. . Khaled Khalifa's "Death Is Hard Work" (I'd prefer Death Is A Hard Business) shows incognizable suffering. Humiliation after humiliation and yet the three siblings belong to the lucky ones. The father's body starts smelling, slowly turns blue and swells because the three loose so many time on this short distance at the Checkpoints. And then we also enter the mind of Bulbul and the past of his family and his relationships. . It was important for me to read something about this sheer terror in Syria. It felt also important that the figures are not acting like in a romantic novel, they are no heroes, I did not fall for any of them. That actually helped me to see the terror they face in a more urgent way, because injustice remains injustice for every one. The writer isn't afraid to also show how there are women that stand behind the power gap between women and men. The book never indocrinates, but it made me think that the people would not live in paradise without the war, but the war has to stop! Bulbul once asks, what would the regime, or the free army do, with such a blood-smeared victory? . The melody of the sentences sounded a bit wrong from time to time and I think the cause was the translation. The phrases sounded like they might be perfect in the original. Maybe the translator wanted to stay close to the composition of the original arabian phrases. In the end, I’d say Khalifa is a great inventor of characters and drawer of situations. I feel happy that I read this book and I'm very touched by the tragedy. . #deathishardwork #khaledkhalifa #death #syria #literature #refugees #war #bookstagram #rowohltverlag #igreads #guyswhoread #gayswhoread #instagood #beautiful #photooftheday #visualsoflife #literatur #dertodisteinmühseligesgeschäft #assadregime #leseempfehlung #krieg #литература #букстаграм #каледкалифа #сирия https://www.instagram.com/p/CGp1M1sA564/?igshid=1015t3acl1fc4