Samar Yazbek’s “Where the wind calls home” (or The wind’s abode) was longlisted to the National Book Award on September 10, 2024!
Amongst the 10 longlisted authors, Samar Yazbek is the only author to have been recognized by the award before. While Leri Price, the translator is among three translators to have been previously listed for the award.
The Finalists will be revealed on Tuesday, October 1 with the New York Times. Winners will be announced live at the 75th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner on Wednesday, November 20, 2024.
Yazbek’s Where the wind calls home, published in English by World Editions.
In this novel, once again, Yazbek tackles the Syrian war, but this time, from a distance. With The wind’s abode, Samar Yazbek comes back to one of her favorite topics: the Alawite community’s transformation, its aesthetics and its faith. While the Syrian war indubitably offers the framework of this story, its heart is elsewhere. With this poignant story, Yazbek writes about the beauty and the cruelty of life, the destruction of worldly beauty and kindness, but also its resilience, and the elevation of the soul through nature.
Similarly to Ali’s, the words of this novel are sparse. No scene or description is superfluous, and Yazbek’s writing is as delicate as Ali’s gaze upon the world. With The wind’s abode, Yazbek offers her finest novel to date.
Rights sold to:
Orlando, The Netherlands (2022)
Stock, France (2023)
Ordfront, Sweden (2023)
Green Books, Malayalam, India (2023)
World Editions, USA (WEL, 2024)
Unionsverlag, Germany (2024)
Nikka Center, Ukraine (forthcoming)
Author bio
Samar Yazbek is a Syrian writer and journalist. She was born in Jableh, Syria, near Latakia, in 1970, and studied Arabic literature at Latakia university.
Yazbek has been a prominent voice in support of human rights and more specifically women’s rights in Syria. In 2012, she launched Women Now for Development, an NGO based in France that aims at empowering Syrian women economically and socially and at educating children. In 2011, she took part in the popular uprising against the Assad regime, and was forced to exile a few months later.
Awards
In 2010, Yazbek was selected as one of the 39 most promising authors under the age of 40, by Beirut39, a contest organized by the Hay Festival.
In 2012, she was chosen for the prestigious PEN/Pinter Prize “International writer of courage”, in recognition of her book “In the Crossfire: Diaries of the Syrian Revolution”. She was also awarded the Swedish PEN/Tucholsky Prize, and the Dutch Oxfam/PEN Prize, in the following year.
In 2016 Yazbek’s literary narrative “The Crossing” was awarded the prestigious French “Best Foreign Book” prize.
In 2018, her novel, “The blue pen”, was in the third and final selection of the French Femina award.
“The blue pen” was shortlisted to the National Book Award, New York under the title “Planet of Clay” in 2021.
In 2019, Samar Yazbek was attributed the honorary citizenship by the City of Palermo.
In 2016, she was given the prestigious French medal of the “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the French ministry of culture.
In 2022, Yazbek was chosen by the Royal Society of Literature as one of its 12 International Writers, along with Anne Carson, Maryse Condé, Yoko Ogawa and Juan Gabriel Vasquez, among others, thereby joining the 12 inaugural awardees of 2021, including Annie Ernaux, David Grossman, Amin Maalouf and Olga Tokarczuk. The RSL international Writers program is an award recognizing the contribution of writers across the globe, celebrating the power of literature to transcend boundaries. New writers are invited to join the program each year.
Her latest novel “Where the wind calls home” is shortlisted to the National Book Award 2024.
Yazbek has published two collections of short stories, seven novels, four non-fiction literary narratives. Her books have been translated in over twenty languages.