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Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life

Voices from Gaza
Brief Description
Throughout 2024, Samar Yazbek met with hundreds of survivors from Gaza, asking each one of them about their experience of October 7, 2023, and what their life has been like since that pivotal date. She has selected twenty-six of these narratives to share with the world.... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$3799
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Releases 18th August 2026 (Approx. Date) Pre-order  "Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life" now to secure your copy from our first shipment

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Acclaimed Syrian writer Samar Yazbek brings her experience chronicling the devastations of war to her latest work of oral history, a collection of testimonies from Gazan civilians since October 7, 2023.

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Throughout 2024, Samar Yazbek met with hundreds of survivors from Gaza, asking each one of them about their experience of October 7, 2023, and what their life has been like since that pivotal date. She has selected twenty-six of these narratives to share with the world.

Yazbek captures the raw, chilling accounts of ordinary civilians aged thirteen to sixty-five, who have witnessed what history may one day remember as one of the most savage military offensives of our time. Their stories reveal a nightmarish dystopia, where each survivor has endured unimaginable loss – homes shattered, loved ones vanished, limbs obliterated – and many have been treated in hospitals ravaged by Israeli attacks.

But these survivors remain determined to share their stories and cling to the hope that their voices will resonate. The title, Your Presence Is a Danger to Your Life, is adapted from one of the flyers dropped on the residents of Gaza minutes before a bombing.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781804272411

Publisher: Fitzcarraldo Editions

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 21 May 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Fitzcarraldo Editions

Contributors:

  • Translated by Leri Price

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 125.0mm

Height: 197.0mm

Weight: 0g

Pages: 256

About the Author

Samar Yazbek is a Syrian writer and journalist. She was born in 1970 and studied Arabic literature at Latakia University. Yazbek has been a prominent advocate for human rights and more specifically women's rights in Syria. In 2011, she took part in the popular uprising against the Assad regime and was forced into exile soon after. In 2010, Yazbek was selected as one of the 39 most promising authors under the age of 40 by Beirut39, organized by the Hay Festival. In 2012 she was awarded the PEN/Pinter Prize 'International writer of courage' for her book In the Crossfire, and received the Swedish Tucholsky Prize and the Dutch Oxfam/PEN Prize the following year. In 2022, Yazbek was chosen by the Royal Society of Literature as one of twelve International Writers. Yazbek has published two short story collections, seven novels and four non-fiction literary narratives, and has been translated into over twenty languages.

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