Cover of The Compulsory Notebook

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The Compulsory Notebook

By ممدوح حمادة

Published by MAMDOUH ADWAN PUBLISHING HOUSE · 2020

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About this book

Mamdouh Hamadeh turns compulsory military service—known colloquially in Syria simply as ‘the compulsory’—into a sequence of sharply observed stories. Stripped of patriotic wrapping, the experience appears as a heavy, formative burden that remains in the body long after service ends: the lasting sensation of a rifle on the shoulder. With dark humour and close attention to ordinary soldiers, the collection exposes the absurdity, fear and small negotiations of life inside a coercive institution.

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