By Asne Gullikstad, for Dagsavisen, November 24th, 2015
Photo credit: Dagsavisen
Samar Yazbek fled first from the Assad regime, but went back to war. The second time, she fled from ISIS. Now terror struck the city she lives in, Paris.
“I opened the window ajar and let in a thin strip of light so the world would see layers of hell.”

“I opened the window ajar and let in a thin strip of light so the world would see layers of hell.” Samar Yazbek went back. She got into the war in Syria again, although …

Interview conducted by Maria Torens, for El Espanol, November 12th, 2015
Photo credit: El Espanol
While hundreds of thousands of Syrians are fleeing their country to seek asylum in neighboring countries and Europe, you went the opposite direction in 2012 and 2013. It sounds crazy.
The situation was not so complicated. DAESH [acronym in Arabic the self-styled Islamic State] had not yet entered Syria. I was determined to come back and settle in our country. It was the beginning of the drift toward tragedy. Now I have also gone into exile [in France].

Interview conducted by Arantza Furundarena, for El Diario Vasco, November 15th, 2015.
Photo credit: El Diario Vasco

– What are your dreams for you country?
– I dream of a a united, secular country, where religion is separate from politics.

Interview conducted by Catalina Guerrero, for La Vanguardia, November 13th, 2015
Photo credit: Getty images
In Syria “we have to face two monsters: the regime of Bashar al-Assad and the ‘Daesh’ (Arabic acronym for the terrorist group Islamic State),” said writer and activist Samar Yazbek, who recounted in “The Crossing” the “atrocities” she has witnessed.
Her intention with this book, Yazbek explains, was “to set the record straight” and give a “voice” to the victims of  an “international war governed by the interests of the great powers” which has reduced her country to “rubbles”…

By Guido Caldion, for Il Manifesto, published on November 15h, 2015
Hoda Barakat is among the most famous and brilliant Lebanese authors. She has lived in Paris for the past thirty years, at Place de la République, the epicentre of the terrorist attack that hit the French capital. Deeply knowledgeable about the works of Marcel Proust and Robert Musil, but also about the Arab poets of the ninth and tenth centuries, Barakat investigates the symbols and history of the Middle Eastern countries, returning to the crisis in that part of the world…
Born in 1952 in Beirut to a Christian …

By Robin Yassin Kassan, for The Daily Beast, November 4th, 2015
Photo credit: Yannis Behrakis/Reuters
The Syrians Who Refused to Give Up
Syrian horrors and hopes almost defy description. Samar Yazbek’s passion and literary skill somehow manage to do them justice.

Samar Yazbek’s searing new book about her Syrian homeland is a testament to the indomitable spirit of her countrymen in their struggle against the Assad regime.
Samar Yazbek’s shocking, searing, and beautiful new book, The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of Syria, describes three visits to Idlib province in northern Syria, …