Samar Yazbek’s US Tour

Yesterday, celebrated Syrian novelist, TV presenter, and memoirist Samar Yazbek arrived in the U.S. for the opening of a ten-city, two-week tour:

She will speak about her newest book, Woman in the Crossfire (trans. Max Weiss), although in all likelihood the core topic of conversation at all these events will be developing events in Syria.
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The schedule below is tentative; please check with me or with the local venue before setting off.
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September 13th – Event at the International Peace Institute in NYC [not open to the public]
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September 14th – Talk at the Hagop Kavorkian Center, NYU at 12:30 p.m.
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September 17th – Event at the US Institute for Peace in Washington DC. [Not open to the public]
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September 18th – Talk at the Middle East Center, UPenn at 5:00 p.m.
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September 19th – Center for Middle East Studies, Yale at 12:00
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September 20th – Talk at Brown University, details TBA.
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September 21st – Center for Middle East Studies, Harvard at 12:00, followed by book signing at the Harvard COOP at 1:30 p.m.
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September 22nd – Chicago, schedule TBA.
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September 24th – Princeton, talk at 4:30 p.m.
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September 26th – Princeton, talk in Arabic, time TBA.
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September 27th – Rutgers University, talk at 7:00 p.m.
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More about Woman in the Crossfire:
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My first reaction: “Reading as Witness“
Reviews of Woman in the Crossfire from Egypt Independent, The Guardian, Kirkus, PW
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Video:
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Samar Yazbek at the Frontline Club with translator Peter Clark
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Recent essays by Yazbek, trans. Max Weiss:
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August 9, 2012: “In the Shadow of Assad’s Bombs” (NY Times)
September 6, 2012: “Dispatch from Syria: Capturing the Truth” (PEN)
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Please do contact me (mlynxqualey – at – gmail – dot – com) if you plan to attend one of these events and want to write about it / photograph it / react to it in some capacity, either in these pages or elsewhere. 
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And my apologies for the weird spacing problems today. 

8 Comments


  2. You are more than wonderful Marcia. You always keep us informed about the latest. Thank you very much for your efforts.

    1. Hey, my favorite cousin Ali, it is always my pleasure. And you will pay me back by helping me find the local bookshops & cultural centers when I finally visit Tunisia. 🙂


  4. Wondering.. are there any young Syrian writers who have emerged lately?

    1. How young and how recently? That is, how young should they be and how recently “emerged”?

  5. I’ve heard of Dima Wannous and Rosa Yassin Hassan (both Beirut39), but wasn’t able to find other authors born after 1975.

    1. Also playwrights or you are only interested in prose authors? I’m pretty sure playwright Mohammad al-Attar (worth following) is very, very young. I assume you mean Syrian authors who are in Syria (or were until recently) not Syrian writers in a diaspora? Syrian comic/graphic-novel artists? http://syriamakescomic.blogspot.com/ Salam Al-Hassan, for instance…

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