Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt

Instead of letting fear rule her life, Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt found ways to overcome it.

Terrorism first intersected Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt’s life in 1982 when she was twelve years old and living in Israel. Its shadow loomed closer when her family moved to Beirut at the height of the Lebanese Civil War to accompany her father on his United Nations peacekeeping mission. That was forty years ago. But the aftershock, the trauma, and the imprint of terror remain. In these narrative essays, the reader moves from the Middle East to Europe, from Quebec’s Eastern Townships to Yellowknife in a personal exploration of terror — psychic, criminal, spiritual, and political. The journey is challenging, yet it carries both redemption and hope.

When asked how to defeat terrorism, Salman Rushdie answered, “Don’t be terrorized. Don’t let fear rule your life. Even if you are scared.” The essays in Carrying War are about one woman’s lifelong struggle with fear and the ways she has found to overcome it.