Planet of Clay - By: Samar Yazbek (Author), Leri Price (Translator)

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ World Editions
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ 5 Oct. 2021
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1642861014
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 9781642861013
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.7 x 2.54 x 19.69 cm

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 coloured 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.

'Brave, rebellious and passionate … Yazbek is no ordinary Syrian dissident.' ― Financial Times

'The Syrian writer Samar Yazbek evokes the horror of civil war with gripping lucidity.' ―Le Monde