The novel revolves around Mahmoud al-Mashi, a Syrian poet and teacher who dives into an artificial lake formed by a dam built during the Baath regime. Al-Mashi dives every day in search of his memories, equipped with fins and a breathing tube, while the civil war rages in the area surrounding the lake, the dam's structure is weakening and there are fears of an unprecedented flood.
Al-Mashi is a man who has lost so much that some call him the “crazy old man”, others the “wise old man”. His obsession is to find what he lost when his village was swallowed by the lake when Hafez al-Assad built the dam in the early 1970s.
His first wife Leila and their young daughter, as well as his beloved Sara, his second wife, and their three children left to fight against Bashar al-Assad's men.
Syria's history, wars, and wounds are interwoven with the family story of a man who dared to say “no” to the Baath Party and chose the voice of writing and nonviolence.
