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 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, …

Mou’in Al Bayari, for Al Araby, October 16th, 2015
The Belarusian Svetlana Alexievich, journalist, meets with many people who witnessed the tragedy she writes about about. She gathers their testimonies, and creates out of an open collage a narrative. The result is not a novel in the usual sense of the term, nor is it a reportage or an investigation. It is a meeting of literature with journalism. It invoques reality, as it is, but with an elevated writing style, rich with words expressing both the intimate and the apparent.

An interview by Ruth Reif, for Der Standaart, published on October 2, 2015

“My soul remains in Syria»
A year after the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, Samar Yazbek was forced to flee. Her name was blacklisted. Since then she has returned several times secretly to her home to interview people.

This article by Angela Schader, was published by NZZ, on September 22, 2015
“Where the sceptre of war leads: Atef Abu Saif has breakfast with drones, and Samar Yazbek travels through destroyed Syria”
(…)
At the beginning of “The Stolen Revolution” [The Crossing], Samar Yazbek takes a peculiar position.
All the details of this report are real, she writes, there is only one fictitious character here – myself:

A review by by Rehana Rossouw, for Business Day, published September 25, 2015
Photo credit: Muhsin Akgun
IN SYRIA millions of people’s lives, homes and livelihoods have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of abject refugees are streaming out to neighbouring countries and Europe. Since the start of the war in 2011 more than 250,000 Syrians have died — inside the country and on their way out — as Aylan Kurdi’s body on a beach will forever testify.
Samar Yazbek travels in the opposite direction, crawling under the barbed wire on the border with Turkey, …