In the summer of 2012 the Kurdish people of northern Syria set out to create a multiethnic society in the Middle East. As Syria plunged into civil war, the Kurds and their Arab and Assyrian allies established a self-governing polity that was not only multiethnic but democratic. They liberated village after village and in March 2019 captured ISIS's last territory in Syria. Around that time, two UK-based filmmakers invited the author to spend a month in Rojava making a film. She accepted, and this is her account of the revolution she witnessed there.

In the summer of 2012 the Kurdish people of northern Syria set out to create a multiethnic society in the Middle East. As Syria plunged into civil war, the Kurds and their Arab and Assyrian allies established a self-governing polity that was not only multiethnic but democratic. They liberated village after village and in March 2019 captured ISIS's last territory in Syria. Around that time, two UK-based filmmakers invited the author to spend a month in Rojava making a film. She accepted, and this is her account of the revolution she witnessed there.