Planet of Clay

2022 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation Longlist

"Brave, rebellious & passionate ... Yazbek is no ordinary Syrian dissident." —Financial Times

"The Syrian writer Samar Yazbek evokes the horror of civil war with gripping lucidity." —Le Monde

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 & 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 & 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,...