Published by Zeit Online, on February 15th, 2023, translated from the Arabic into German by Larissa Bender
Below some excerpts in English, translated with the help of Google translate.
Photo credit (c) Hassan Ammar / AP / Aleppo
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“I never thought that one day I would stand on the hilltop of the world and see Syria being hit by an earthquake. The earth had trembled a few times when I was growing up, and all I remember is my mother’s fear that we would all die under the rubble. She woke us up after midnight and got us out quickly. The …

A review by Richard Jacquemond, for Le Monde des Livres, January 26th, 2023
 
Through the eyes of this half-simple, half-mystical young man, like a character by the Lebanese poet Khalifa Gibran (1883 – 1931), a whole world is seen collapsing under the he effect of a war … But, with Samar Yazbek’s skill, this collapse is told in a minor key, as if the essential were elsewhere, in the life to which those who remain cling

Review by Joseph Croitoru for Frankfurter Allgemeine, 2 May 2022
When dreams go away: Khaled Khalifa recounts the recent history of Aleppo in his novel “No One prayed at their graves”.
Some works of fiction, even if not necessarily the author’s intention, can take on astonishing poignancy over time. Such is the case with Syrian author Khaled Khalifa’s latest novel, “No One Prayed at their Graves,” originally published in 2019, which evokes a forgotten era in Aleppo’s history and is now available in German in an excellent translation by Larissa Bender.

 
Interview by Will Forrester for PEN Transmissions, December 8, 2021
I think that if I could go back to those days, I would do the same thing all over again. I never regret going back to Syria – being there at the frontline, and in the middle of the war – nor do I regret leaving.I always tried to stay alive, but with my personal condition I had to do what needed to be done, despite the fear. By that token, in returning and sharing in death and people’s pain, through my …