by Seraj Assi
PM Press
9/8/2026, paperback
SKU: 9798887441948
In a world scarred by indiscriminate bombing, forced starvation, and mass displacement, a nameless survivor lies crushed beneath the rubble of a bombing—alive, but barely.
Entombed in darkness with no hope of rescue, he must navigate the thin edge between life and death using only his hearing, sense of smell, and the volatile power of his imagination. Above him a genocide unfolds. Below, in his fragile pocket of air, he begins to witness it in ways no unburied survivor ever could.
As hours blur into days, hallucination and reality weave together. Memories seep through the cracks. Fantastical visions rise from the dust. In this liminal state, he gains a strange, heightened clarity, an almost supernatural insight known only to those suspended between worlds, the mortally wounded who hover in the space where time fractures and the mind sharpens to a blade.
What begins as desperate escapism becomes a haunting chronicle of a people forced underground by violence, a nation living beneath the weight of another’s cruelty. In the darkness, he discovers a grim sanctuary: the rubble is a tomb but also a refuge from the firestorm above.
A wartime tale of resilience amid annihilation, Seraj Assi's debut novel plunges readers into the intimate terror of one man’s confinement and the collective suffering of his shattered homeland. As he reflects, “Being under the rubble is a strange thing. . . . You’re clinging to life not to live, but to defy death. Just because you’re breathing doesn’t mean you’re alive. You’re a ghost, and your homeland is but a ghostland.”
This is the story of a people driven underground not by myth or choice, but by force: “We are subterranean only because others refuse to allow us our place under the sun.”
Reviews:
“Brilliant and harrowing. Assi’s debut novel begins as a silent song of survival and soon becomes a glorious symphony of the radical imagination. Rubble is timeless, essential reading.” — Cara Hoffman, author of RUIN and The Last Coward on Earth
“A witness to the hollowing of Palestine, Assi paints vividly on the inside of its carapace. Art is our final defiance of horror and death, and there is no better example than this.”
— Meg Elison, author of Big Girl
About the Author:
Seraj Assi is a Palestinian writer living in exile in Washington, DC. This is his debut novel.