Portrait of a piano man of Yarmouk

A collaborative effort makes ‘The Pianist of Yarmouk’ a clunky read, but that doesn’t take from the fact that this is a great story and provides a vital piece in the jigsaw of the Syrian war, writes Josephine Fenton.

From every conflict emerges an iconic photograph. Nine-year-old Kim Phuk, in 1972, running naked from a napalm attack during the Vietnam War or the body of refugee Alan Kurdi aged three, washed up on the shore near Bodrum in 2015. The 2014 image of Aeham Ahmad, playing an upright piano surrounded by the debris of Yarmouk, is also unforgettable.

It does not have as much pathos, of course, as depictions of wounded or dead children, but there is poignancy and romance in the idea of music floating through devastated streets. On the one side lie art and culture and balanced against them are hatred and violence. All are creations of humankind.