“Samar Yazbek, the soldier of Syrian memory”
By Victoria Gairin, for Le Point
(Photo credit: Rania Stephan)
Revealing the truth is what drives Samar Yazbek. “Quick, before we all sink into collective amnesia. I am so afraid that we will all lose our memories… We cannot retain from a conflict only figures!” Yet they are there, relentless and monstrous, yet another record of an endless conflict. More than 380,000 dead in almost 9 years, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Saturday January 4.

 Lena Bopp interviews Sinan Antoon for FAZ

 January 2020

Two final questions translated here:

Your last novel “The book of collateral damage” (“Index”) is (…) a kind of archive, a catalog full of things that once existed in Iraq and that are lost
I imagine the terrible concept of collateral damage as a black hole that swallows up everything: houses, people, animals, trees. Everything that life is. The book is also about the possibility of archiving. 

By Christophe Ayad, For Le Monde, July 2019
(Photo credit: Lea Crespi, Pasco)
Great talks with great writers 2 | 5. The Lebanese writer, translated all over the world, received the coveted “Arab Booker” in April. This meeting takes place in Paris, her adopted city, where she talks about literature, religion, and the civil war that ignites the Arab world.
(…)

Interview By Annick Cojean, for Le Monde, October 2019
 
We must not let the memory of the events that have occurred since the first demonstrations in March 2011 dissolve, and demand more democracy (…) “So many things have happened,” she said, “magnificent and cruel, that you must tear yourself from oblivion. And there are so many other elements to show Syrians as this image of shattered victims, undermined by bitterness. They fought. They acted. They hoped. And the cause was noble. We must give them justice. Tell the truth ! Quick, …

The mission of the National Book Award is to “celebrate the best literature in America, expand its audience, and ensure that books have a prominent place in American culture”

The winner will be announced on November 20th.
 
Death is hard work has received a lot of praise (see below) in the various countries where it was published (see list of cessions below).
Bulbul’s father just passed away in a Damascus hospital. His last request to his son was to be buried in his hometown of Aannabiya, in the province of Aleppo.

Interview by Hala Kodmani for Liberation, September 2019
In her book, the novelist and activist brings together the testimonies of those she knew and accompanied in her country at war. Nurses, teachers, mothers, often spent in prison, they survived the terror and the war without ever giving up. “Heroines” in search of a secular and democratic revolution.
Samar Yazbek: “Through the voice of these Syrian women, I want to say that we are not victims but resistants”