“The narrative of genocide rests ultimately on the act of erasure, and erasure as such renders it irrevocable, overwhelming, total – dominant and impossible to communicate with”
Many thanks to the National Book Award for its further support of Samar Yazbek’s literary work of meticulous documentation.
The book is a collection of testimonies of the massacres in Gaza by its victims.
Many thanks to its UK Publisher, Fitzcarraldo, and its US Publisher Other Press, for bringing it into existence in the English speaking world.
This is the second time Samar Yazbek and Leri Price are finalists together to the National Book Award.
The winner will be announced on November 18th.
The other four finalists are:
Karl Ove Knausgaard, The School of Night
Translated from the Norwegian by Martin Aitken
Penguin Press / Penguin Random HouseVicente Luis Mora, Centroeuropa
Translated from the Spanish by Rahul Bery
Bellevue Literary PressIntan Paramaditha, Night of a Thousand Hells
Translated from the Indonesian by Stephen Epstein and Tiffany Tsao
Europa EditionsMohamed Mbougar Sarr, Pure Men
Translated from the French by Lara Vergnaud
Other Press
SOME PRESS
“Perhaps the survivor’s testimony says less than the silence of the annihilated. But in the book’s introduction Yazbek asks whether it is at all possible to speak of these people as “survivors”. Has someone who has lost their children, their home, their past and large parts of their own body really made it through in any meaningful sense?”
— Dagens Nyheter
“[Yazbek] is widely regarded as one of the most important voicesdocumenting conflict in the Middle East today. Her latest work…is a vital, harrowing document…a human portrait of one of the most devastating military offensives in recent history.”
—The Mirror
“Yazbek documents humanity at both its most broken and most resilient…This is not an easy book to read, but it is an essential one.”
—Buzz Magazine
“These testimonies from Palestinians living in Gaza are important reading; the cumulative effect of encountering them in one place is also utterly devastating.”
—Words Without Borders
“A vital reminder of the ongoing genocide and the almost unimaginable extent of its human costs.”
—Bookblast
“It is a searing read, very moving both in the piety so often saving the sanity of these casualties of appalling vengeance, and in their hope for a future.”
—The Tablet
“A harrowing book, at once a work of remembrance and a plea for justice.”
—Telerama
“Despite all the horrific descriptions, this is above all a book about humanity,about people who, despite their immeasurable suffering, fight for their own lives and the lives of others, and even retain a glimmer of hope. Giving their voices a public restores a
measure of dignity to these Palestinians.”
—Deutschlandfunk Kultur
“A Syrian author becomes the voice of Gaza’s survivors… bringing narrative empathy and urgency… aiming to transcend political discourse and bear witness to extreme brutality”
—Le Monde
“What elevates the book from a mere catalog of horrors is the profound psychological resilience exhibited by the survivors.”
—Streamline
“Yazbek’s collection of testimonies, spanning the shattered lives of children as young as thirteen to the weary wisdom of the elderly, refutes the diminishment intended by the airdropped leaflets. If the leaflets claim their presence is a danger, Yazbek proves their erasure is the true catastrophe.”
—ArabLit
“A slim book that’s certain to break you, but then it should… Yazbek’s journalism is likely to become a historical document of this cruel campaign of criminal carnage unleashed on a people.”
—Irish Independent
“This is a remarkable, shattering book that holds its voices with dignity and care.”
—A.L. Kennedy, author of Alive in the Merciful Country
“A work of profound ethical significance, a direct offering of words from voices that should never be silenced.”
—Preti Taneja, author of Aftermath
SOLD RIGHTS
Stock, France, 2025
Orlando, Netherlands, 2025
Sellerio, Italy, 2025
Unionsverlag, Germany, 2026
Fitzcarraldo, UK, WEL, 2026
Other Press, USA 2026
Ordfront, Sweden (forthcoming)
Enderun Tanıtım Hizmetleri Ltd, Turkey (forthcoming)
Marco Polo Press (South Korea, forthcoming)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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.
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.
In 2024 her novel “Where the wind calls home” was shortlisted to the National Book Award.
