After a bitter betrayal, Aliyah is banished from her mistress’ villa at dawn and sent back to the dusty alleyways of her childhood. Exhausted, both maid and mistress seek refuge in sleep and dream of their troubled childhoods, loneliness, love, and their lives together. A darkly humorous tale, Cinnamon portrays the inner world of two Damascene women and their search for security and tenderness from two opposing ends of the social scale.

Samar Yazbek is a journalist, novelist, and activist. Her diary of the Syrian revolution, A Woman in the Crossfire, was also published by Haus Publishing in July 2012.