Planet of Clay

Product Description
FINALIST FOR THE 2021 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE
The new novel Planet Of Clay gives a haunting and unflinching look at the horrors of war - the bombing, the starvation, the fear - all seen through the eyes of Rima, a young girl with a vibrant imagination."―NPR
“Planet of Clay is a devastating novel about human resilience and fragility in a time of war.”―Foreword Reviews, starred review
Rima, a young girl from Damascus, longs to walk, to be free to follow the will of her feet, but instead is perpetually constrained. Rima finds refuge in a fantasy world full of colored crayons, secret planets, and The Little Prince, reciting passages of the Qur’an like a mantra as everything and everyone around her is blown to bits. Since Rima hardly ever speaks, people think she’s crazy, but she is no fool―the madness is in the battered city around her. One day while taking a bus through Damascus, a soldier opens fire and her mother is killed. Rima, wounded, is taken to a military hospital before her brother leads her to the besieged area of Ghouta―where, between bombings, she writes her story. In Planet of Clay, Samar Yazbek offers a surreal depiction of the horrors taking place in Syria, in vivid and poetic language and with a sharp eye for detail and beauty.
Review
FINALIST FOR THE 2021 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN TRANSLATED LITERATURE
Praise for Samar Yazbek
“One of Syria’s most gifted novelists.” ―CNN
“Yazbek’s is the urgent task of showing the world what is happening. Thanks to her, we can read about the appalling things that go on in secret, underground places.” ―The Guardian
Praise for Planet of Clay
"Samar Yazbek’s Planet of Clay is a lyrical and moving portrait of Rima, a young neurodivergent girl living through the horrors of the Syrian civil war. Rima yearns to be free but is always, quite literally, tied to her mother, her brother, his friend, the bed, the wall, even as everyone runs around her, like Yazbek's fitting stream-of-consciousness prose, as bombs explode and gunfire blasts and the city collapses. This extraordinary translation by Leri Price conjures Rima’s own secret planets, a world of colors, and another life."―National Book Awards Judges Citation
“Wrenching … offers a remarkable account of wartime despair.” ―Publishers Weekly
“Planet of Clay gives a haunting and unflinching look at the horrors of war―the bombing, the starvation, the fear―all seen through the eyes of Rima, a young girl with a vibrant imagination.” ―NPR
“Planet of Clay is a devastating novel about human resilience and fragility in a time of war.” ―Foreword Reviews, starred review
“The young, mute narrator of this compassionate novel becomes a poignant emblem of the Syrian women confined by war…a bold portrayal of besieged people.” ―The Observer
“Rima is a fantastic character.” ―Kirkus Reviews
“The Syrian writer Samar Yazbek evokes the horror of civil war with gripping lucidity in her novel Planet of Clay.” ―Le Monde
“With the brazenness typical of her recent work, Samar Yazbek immerses us in the horror of the Syrian conflict, and the way it resonates in the flesh and minds of those who are living it. It is through the women whom the author has met on the ground at certain moments throughout this war that she describes the capacity for resistance in the face of atrocity.” ―Libération
“An ingenious character and a literary approach on the verge of the unimaginable. Samar Yazbek's novel is brave on many levels.” ―Göteborgs-Posten“
Planet of Clayis a deeply original, almost surreal fantasia, written in a simple, clear style. But the surrealistic stroke is raised, because the evil and the suffering surrounding Rima are real to such a great extent … A novel like
Planet of Clay filters through all our conscious and unconscious blinkers.”
―Arbetarbladet\n“We others can only read―and cry.” ―Kristeligt Dagblad
“The book left this reader very touched, beyond the cruel reality it describes, because of Yazbek’s sen