Samar Yazbek is a Syrian writer and journalist. She was born in 1970 and studied Arabic literature at Latakia University. Yazbek has been a prominent advocate for human rights and more specifically women’s rights in Syria. In 2011, she took part in the popular uprising against the Assad regime and was forced into exile soon after. In 2010, Yazbek was selected as one of the 39 most promising authors under the age of 40 by Beirut39, organized by the Hay Festival. In 2012 she was awarded the PEN/Pinter Prize ‘International writer of courage’ for her book In the Crossfire, and received the Swedish Tucholsky Prize and the Dutch Oxfam/PEN Prize the following year. In 2022, Yazbek was chosen by the Royal Society of Literature as one of twelve International Writers. Yazbek has published two short story collections, seven novels and four non-fiction literary narratives, and has been translated into over twenty languages.

‘While narrating death and destruction, the witnesses Yazbek spoke with still found a way to illustrate that, in the words of Palestinian poet Rafeef Ziadah, they taught life. Many insisted on showing Yazbek pictures of their families and of themselves when their bodies were still whole; some entrusted her with a list of names of the people they lost; they defied erasure by every means available to them.... 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.’— Ibtihal Rida Mahmood, Arab Lit

Samar Yazbek is a Syrian writer and journalist. She was born in 1970 and studied Arabic literature at Latakia University. Yazbek has been a prominent advocate for human rights and more specifically women’s rights in Syria. In 2011, she took part in the popular uprising against the Assad regime and was forced into exile soon after. In 2010, Yazbek was selected as one of the 39 most promising authors under the age of 40 by Beirut39, organized by the Hay Festival. In 2012 she was awarded the PEN/Pinter Prize ‘International writer of courage’ for her book In the Crossfire, and received the Swedish Tucholsky Prize and the Dutch Oxfam/PEN Prize the following year. In 2022, Yazbek was chosen by the Royal Society of Literature as one of twelve International Writers. Yazbek has published two short story collections, seven novels and four non-fiction literary narratives, and has been translated into over twenty languages.

‘While narrating death and destruction, the witnesses Yazbek spoke with still found a way to illustrate that, in the words of Palestinian poet Rafeef Ziadah, they taught life. Many insisted on showing Yazbek pictures of their families and of themselves when their bodies were still whole; some entrusted her with a list of names of the people they lost; they defied erasure by every means available to them.... 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.’— Ibtihal Rida Mahmood, Arab Lit

Samar Yazbek is a Syrian writer and journalist. She was born in 1970 and studied Arabic literature at Latakia University. Yazbek has been a prominent advocate for human rights and more specifically women’s rights in Syria. In 2011, she took part in the popular uprising against the Assad regime and was forced into exile soon after. In 2010, Yazbek was selected as one of the 39 most promising authors under the age of 40 by Beirut39, organized by the Hay Festival. In 2012 she was awarded the PEN/Pinter Prize ‘International writer of courage’ for her book In the Crossfire, and received the Swedish Tucholsky Prize and the Dutch Oxfam/PEN Prize the following year. In 2022, Yazbek was chosen by the Royal Society of Literature as one of twelve International Writers. Yazbek has published two short story collections, seven novels and four non-fiction literary narratives, and has been translated into over twenty languages.

‘While narrating death and destruction, the witnesses Yazbek spoke with still found a way to illustrate that, in the words of Palestinian poet Rafeef Ziadah, they taught life. Many insisted on showing Yazbek pictures of their families and of themselves when their bodies were still whole; some entrusted her with a list of names of the people they lost; they defied erasure by every means available to them.... 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.’— Ibtihal Rida Mahmood, Arab Lit