Bana al-Abed, the 7-year-old peace activist whose Twitter recounts of Syria's civil war collectively broke the world's heart, has been offered a book deal with Simon & Schuster.
Bana al-Abed's Twitter career began September of last year, after uploading a video of herself filmed by her father. Aided by her English-speaking mother, Fatemah, al-Abed took to Twitter "for the sake of Aleppo's children, to stay alive. We used Twitter to make the voice of Aleppo children reach the world," she said in a December press conference.
Throughout 2016, Bana, with her pigtails and professed love for Harry Potter, wrote of hunger, airstrikes, bombings, being gripped by constant fear as the seige of Aleppo raged on - and yet, despite it all, she maintained hope for peace. Soon, she had the attention of 368,000 Twitter followers - and the world.
Early in December 2016, the Twitter account went dark. #WhereIsBana began trending, as fans, as well as people new to her story, feared the worst. The last message, sent by her mother, read "Please please please make this ceasefire work & get us out now. We are so tired."
Days later, the family re-emerged, having been evacuated to Turkey.
Entitled Dear World, al-Abed's book will chronicle her and her family's experiences, caught in the midst of Syria's civil war, as well as their current situation as refugees in Turkey. Bana's al Abed's mother has spoken out about the heartbreaking paradox so many refugees face: needing to leave their country, as a matter of survival, while wanting, desperately, to stay.
Now in Turkey, where they've been granted permission to stay, Bana and Fatemah continue to post on Twitter, calling, still, for peace not just in Syria, but throughout the world. The title of her book, Dear World, references back to the beginning of so many of her Tweets. "Dear world, there is very big bombing right now. More innocent children and people are dying"; "Dear world, we are really running out of food"; "Dear world, we are dying."
The book will be released fall 2017.
