I just wanted to save my family : a memoir /
Stephan Pelissier ; with Cecile-Agnes Champart ; translated from the French by Adriana Hunter.
- New York : Other Press, c2021.
- 244 p. : map.
"Originally published in 2019 as Je voulais juste sauver ma famille by Éditions Michel Lafon, Neuilly-sur-Seine Cedex, France" -- title page verso.
Wedding(s) -- Four thousand kilometers -- Living and growing up in Bashar al-Assad's Syria (Anas's story) -- We can't leave them to die! -- Reunited in Patras -- Arrest -- In court -- Coming back, alone -- The challenge of crossing borders (Anas's story) -- (Re)united -- Foreigners -- New lives -- Happiness with no clouds on the horizon (Zena's story) -- When your world falls apart and the sky falls in -- Dear Mr. Pélissier, the French President has asked me... -- Raising awareness and media coverage -- An unbearable waiting game -- Seven years in prison (Zena's story) -- Guilty of loving -- A reluctant appeal -- Being French! (Zena's story) -- Today and tomorrow... -- The fight goes on.
"The timely, powerful memoir of a man unjustly charged with a crime for helping his relatives, refugees from Syria. For trying to save his in-laws, who were fleeing certain death in Syria, Stéphan Pélissier was threatened with fifteen years in prison by the Greek justice system, which accused him of human smuggling. His crime? Having gone to search for the parents, brother, and sister of his wife, Zéna, in Greece rather than leaving them to undertake a treacherous journey by boat to Italy. Their joy on finding each other quickly turned into a nightmare: Pélissier was arrested as a result of a missing car registration and thrown into prison. Although his relatives were ultimately able to seek asylum-legally-in France, Pélissier had to fight to prove his innocence, and to uphold the values of common humanity and solidarity in which he so strongly believes. I Just Wanted to Save My Family offers a heartrending window into the lives of those displaced by the Syrian civil war and a scathing critique of the often absurd, unfeeling bureaucracies that determine their fates"--
9781635420180 (paperback) 1635420180 (paperback)
2020021949
Refugees--Biography.--Syria Human smuggling --Greece. False imprisonment --Greece. Lawyers --Biography.--France --Biography.
Syria --History --Refugees.--Civil War, 2011- France--Emigration and immigration--Government policy.