Titles

• The wind’s abode | Maqam al rih 2021 – view details
• 19 women: Tales of resilience from Syria | 19 imra’a: Souriyyat yarwayn 2018 – view details
• The blue pen | Al macha’a 2017- view details
• The crossing | Buwabat ard al aadam 2015 – view details
• In the crossfire | Taqatoo niran 2012 – view details
• In her mirrors | Laha maraya 2010 – view details
• Cinnamon | Ra’ihat al-Qirfa 2008 – view details
• Clay | Silsal 2005 – view details

Biography

Born in 1970 in Jable, Syria, Samar Yazbek studied literature before beginning her career as a journalist and a script writer for Syrian television and cinema. She currently lives in Paris.
Yazbek was an active participant in “Women Initiative Organization”, dedicated to the defense of women’s and children’s rights. She was involved in “Liberties”, a center which defends the freedom of speech for journalists in Syria. She also was the editor of “Women of Syria”, an electronic magazine and free observatory that focuses on women, children and community in Syria. Such issues are at the heart of her literary work, and for this reason her books have been controversial and severely criticized by the regime.

In 2011 Samar Yazbek was the first to publish an account of the Syrian uprising’s first four months, In the crossfire: A diary of the Syrian revolution, where she carefully documented the protests and the repression, recorded valuable testimonies, and described her personal despair. In 2012, The book was awarded the PEN Pinter award in the UK and the Pen Tucholsky prize in Sweden. In 2013, the book was awarded the PEN Oxfam Novib prize in the Netherlands. The crossing won the “Best foreign book” award in France, and was shortlisted for the Medicis. The blue pen was on the third and final selection of the French Femina award.

The blue pen is on the longlist of the National Book Award 2021

In the press

“The winds’ abode”

 “Samar Yazbek successfully transports Syrian reality, with all its horrors, and in all its splendor, into the living room… The poetic, visual sentences turn this story into a true-to-life film.” — (Kif Kif)

“Samar Yazbek’s writing evokes Giono… her best novel to date” — (Le Monde des Livres)

“Through this poetic story told in a remarkable lyrical form, the author provides us with a powerful portrayal of the soul of her fragmented country” — (Les Echos)

“In The Winds’ Abode, Samar Yazbek’s writing is exquisitely painful.” — (L’Orient Litteraire)

“This is the tale of man coalescing with nature, of man as the offspring of nature… Yazbek brings his story to life in a very unique style ” — (Al Quds al-Arabi)

“Samar Yazbek has written an elegantly wrapped and powerful novel, with a fluid and subtle language, a slow pace and a translucent beauty” — (Independant Arabia)

“The blue pen”

“The young, mute narrator of this compassionate novel by the author of The Crossing becomes a poignant emblem of the Syrian women confined by war. ” — (The Guardian, 2021)

“Words can build a better world and repel ugliness” — (L’Express, 2018)

The “Grace” of Yazbek — (Le Monde, 2018)

“Did Samar Yazbek write our most important novel?” — (Forlagsliv, 2018)

“Powerful” “Poignant” — (Livres Hebdo, 2018)

Yazbek’s Blue Pen “crafts an original voice” “foreign and innovative imagery” — (Dagbladet, 2018)

“Ingenious character, and a literary approach on the verge of the unimaginable” – (GP, Sweden, 2018)

“The crossing”

“Formidable narrative” — (Le Monde, 2016)

“Comparable to Orwell” — (Le Nouvel Observateur, 2016)

“Colossal” — (Liberation, 2016)

“Remarable” — (Le Figaro, 2016)

“Indispensable” — (Adfonbladet, 2015)

“Yazbek is comparable to Svetlana Alexievich” — (SVT, 2015)

“Schocking, searing and beautiful” — (The Daily Beast, 2015)

“Powerful and deeply painful” — (The Times Literary Supplement, 2015)

“Crosses the line from journalism to high literary art” — (The observer, 2015)

Cessions

• The wind’s abode (2021)

• 19 women: Tales of resilience from Syria (2018)

• The blue pen (2018)

• The crossing (2015) 

• In the crossfire (2012)

Buchet-Chastel (2012, France)
Haus (2012, UK)
Nagel & Kimche, Hanser (2012, Germany)
Nigh & Ditmar (2013, Netherlands)
Timas (2013, Turkey)

• In her mirrors (2010)

Castelvecchi (2011, Italy)

• Cinnamon (2008) 

Castelvecchi (2010, Italy)
Arabia books, Haus (2013, UK)
Buchet-Chastel (2013, France)
Ordfront (2013, Sweden)
Cappelen Damm (2013, Norway)
Nagel & Kimche, Hanser (2014, Germany)

[Updated August 2023]