Planet of Clay
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher 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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A mute girl from Damascus seeks refuge in her imagination in this poignant and harrowing novel. With civil war ravaging her home country of Syria, little Rima wiles away her hours in the library where her mother works. But when her mother is killed, Rita’s world shrinks even further, confining her to her family’s apartment, where she makes sense of the chaos around her through stories like The Little Prince and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland while singing passages from the Qur’an. Rima’s lyrical and at times confused voice is dreamlike and captivating. For her, the real world and the realities of her beloved books often blur together, perfectly encapsulating the disorder and horror of a war viewed through the eyes of someone so young. Memorable, emotional, and brave, Planet of Clay offers an important, strangely beautiful look at an ongoing real-world tragedy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A girl from Damascus finds refuge in literature during the Syrian Civil War in this chilling work from Syrian writer Yazbek (The Crossing). At three, Rima decides to stop speaking. To keep her safe during the fighting, her mother takes extreme precautions, such as tying Rima's hand to the bed every time she goes to work, with a rope long enough that Rima can still wander around her bedroom. As her isolated childhood unfolds, Rima finds happiness by drawing scenes from The Little Prince and making up "hard to invade" planets. Then, when Rima is a teen, her mother is killed by soldiers at a checkpoint, and Rima is taken to a military hospital, where she witnesses more suffering and death. From there, the narrative becomes labyrinthine, and Rima's accounts often resemble a fever dream, reflecting the effects of her trauma and attempts to survive. Rima's tendency to jump from one story to the next without resolution can be frustrating and difficult to follow, but the individual moments are nonetheless wrenching. Despite its flaws, this offers a remarkable account of wartime despair.
