British Yousra

What is the story of British Yusra?

A novel published by Dar Al-Farabi from Beirut

The world has changed forcefully making a change in the universe, that was the fate she was attached to as she walked on a walkway of coal, creatures feeding on death to reach life, and feed on life to enter the realm of death, a series of traps that had to be passed in order to ultimately survive, but at what cost?

Yusra Al-Qurmuzi, or British Yusra, a story narrating a long journey of a difficult trip by an Arab girl from The Iraqi city of Al-Zubair, she had crossed unpaved barbed roads, since a young age, she had witnessed the Iraqi-Iranian war, the two Gulf wars - the liberation of Kuwait and the Overthrow of Saddam Hussain - and the forth war with terror represented in ISIS and Al-Qaeda...

Yusra, the girl from Al-Zubair, had visited the different capitals of the world, starting from Al-Zubair in Barsa in Iraq, passing through Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, Dubai, Britain, Switzerland, again to Iraq then Arbil in northern Iraq. A trip by the girl from Al-Zubair that led her to settle in one of the terrible prisons of ISIS, before that, she had begun a tormenting journey as a refugee in Britain, she carried the British nationality to fight in a secret shady front amidst a multi-million Dollar storm, pouring onto her till she settled in the heart of a terrorist earthquake that placed her in a solitary cell waiting for the death penalty from an organization she got involved in or with.

An arduous novel of 408 middle-sized pages that narrates a Sinbad-like journey of a girl kidnapped by the lure of internationalism, money, nightlife and hotels, and then the wilderness, deserts and ruins, to end up dwell among creatures who believe only in death as a path of self-liberation, expressing it via armed organizations, cities, airports and hotels, accompanied by dangerous men, leading the changing of the world by force, deception and traps. How can she coexist with this sporadic network of violence and wave-like successive policies?

(From Al-Zubair to Aleppo, Bahrain, Dubai and even Britain then Kurdistan, did she fall into the hands of ISIS and make it out? Or was fate drawing something else for her as planned by the intelligence agencies?

"I knew that the red lines existed everywhere in this world, but she did not imagine that there was a throne of spears waiting for her to be seated on, bearing a mountain of alarming feelings of the terror to come, she heard of the revolutionary courts and the swift military field courts, but she did not imagine that there were women, men and even children who got executed, she glimpsed the ghost of her mother in a rare hour of mental clarity, Najwa Al-Qattan, hanging washed clothes on a rope above the roof of the house, it including the military suit of Jabbar Al-Sharif. She imagined the specter of a young girl standing a few steps away from the woman looking at the military uniform, where she sees the symbolic grandeur of something that gave her a feeling that she did not understand at the moment, but understood now that she was close to death. It was silent for the next few days. She was held hostage in a cell filled with ants and insects with a wooden roof, which regularly produced dust causing her to cough. She arrived at the place via a large transport vehicle loaded with materials, it had carried her blindfolded. She did not know the looks, IDs and number of those accompanying her on the vehicle, with the exception of a man who used to cough from time to time".

The story of Yusra is told by Jabbar Al-Sharif Al-Qurmuzi

The story deals with the development of Yusra's story and its stages of transformation:

Yusra Al-Qurmuzi

British Yusra

Yusra the Terrorist

And her transit stations during this journey spanning years of burning coal from Al-Zubair, to Aleppo, to the Lebanese, Syrian, Turkish and Iraqi borders through Bahrain, Dubai and London.

(ِA Passage from the Novel):

She woke up on the sound of footsteps at dawn, the door opened before the sun rose, she had barely slept after long hours of chronic insomnia, the creak of the wooden door broke the silence of dawn, the man's feet touched the floor of the room, she dusted the shabby, florid cotton blanket off her and crossed her legs amidst the silence of the man with sleep puffed face. He looked at her and said, "Did you not hear the Fajr call for prayer? As usual you sleep like a dead person".

"What is the pleasure in repeating the word death?" The panic was apparent on her face from the statue like man who did not move any part of his body; even his eyes were bulgy and did not blink once as if they were glass eyes. "What does he carry for me in this suddenly dark dawn?".

He broke his silence and said in a commanding tone.

"Get up, wash up and pray Fajr, we will take you for a drive, your stay here has ended. Suddenly, the sound of an explosion was heard in the distance, she tried to catch her breath, she began to shiver from the cold and remained a prisoner of the place, as if she had not heard the man who scolded her in a harsh commanding tone, she lost her strength, not understanding the situation, still mostly sleepy and tired.

"Will they kill me?"

"There is execution then"

"No not today"

Two hours later, the truck arrived at a building inside the aerial bombardment destroyed city. It carried a number of unarmed bearded men, similar to the last time she came to this location. This time, she was not blindfolded, she saw during the last two hours rough roads, paved streets and destroyed buildings and cars, but the town she entered had a low population, some boys crossed the roads, some stray cats and dogs were moving about, garbage drums appeared smashed or burned while the garbage covered some corners of the roads. Most of the shops were closed and the city looked similar to a truce, she looked at these scenes hoping to get an idea of her location, but she overheard a garrulous person mention Al-Qa'im "I returned to the target, may this time be cursed, one moment I am close, and the next I am far" When the vehicle stopped near a parking lot, everyone got out except for her, the driver signaled her to wait, she remained for more than thirty five minutes till a small car arrived, one of the masked gunmen got out, led her to the car, covered her eyes and drove off as fast as he could. At first, there was silence, disturbed only by the sound of the jeep's engine, her tormented voice faintly then heard with a deep tone of sorrow.