The Weight of Sand

First time Edith will tell her story: Edith has never given an interview or talked about her experience before launching the book. Poetry saved her life: writing poetry with a borrowed pen, on whatever scraps of paper she could find, saved Edith’s life while she was held hostage, she says. Her poems are printed in the book.High-profile hostage situation: Edith and her traveling companion, Luca, made international headlines when they were abducted in December 2018 by an Islamic terrorist organization. High-profile media story: The New York Times profiled Edith Blais’s abduction and homecoming in March 2020, as did many other outlets. Civilian perspective: Unlike other hostage memoirs, Edith’s is from the perspective of a civilian, which provides a unique voice to the hostage memoir drama.Distinctly literary in tone and structure: featuring poems Blais wrote in captivity, further differentiating it from most other hostage memoirs. Features original art by the author in the endpapers of the book.