The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq

The recently announced longlist for the first National Book Award for translated literature inspired me to pick up, finally, a book I'd had my eye on: this remarkable account of Iraqi women who escaped their imprisonment and sexual slavery under ISIS (or Daesh, as they are referred to there). Mikhail is an Iraqi poet and journalist, living in exile in Michigan; her link to these stories (via spotty cell-phone calls) is a man named Abdullah, a former beekeeper who has responded to the crisis by becoming a full-time hostage smuggler and negotiator. It is a story of almost unimaginable—but horribly familiar—cruelty, and also of matter-of-fact human decency and heroism. Mere decency, in this case, often feels heroic, even if, unbearably, it may not be enough.