Planet of Clay

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE

"Planet of Clay is a devastating novel about human resilience and fragility in a time of war." --Foreword Reviews, starred review

"Brave, rebellious and passionate ... Yazbek is no ordinary Syrian dissident." --Financial Times

Rima, a young girl from Damascus, longs to walk, to be free to follow the will of her feet, but instead is perpetually constrained. Rima finds refuge in a fantasy world full of colored crayons, secret planets, and The Little Prince, reciting passages of the Qur'an like a mantra as everything and everyone around her is blown to bits. Since Rima hardly ever speaks, people think she's crazy, but she is no fool--the madness is in the battered city around her. One day while taking a bus through Damascus, a soldier opens fire and her mother is killed. Rima, wounded, is taken to a military hospital before her brother leads her to the besieged area of Ghouta--where, between bombings, she writes her story. In Planet of Clay, Samar Yazbek offers a surreal depiction of the horrors taking place in Syria, in vivid and poetic language and with a sharp eye for detail and beauty.

Binding Type: Paperback
Author: Yazbek, Samar
Published: 10/05/2021
Publisher: World Editions
ISBN: 9781642861013
Pages: 336
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 7.95h x 4.96w x 1.02d