Image: Lamia Ziadé, Detail from "Fairuz in My Grandfather’s Shop."
This month we’re off to Beirut and beyond in the company of six Lebanese writers. Their fiction, memoir, and graphics reflect the sweeping array of cultures, politics, wars, exiles, religions, and languages that swirl within this kaleidoscopic literature. Hoda Barakat conducts a postal roundelay, while Jabbour Douaihy eases a Christian man with a Muslim name through an armed checkpoint. Charles Chahwan—"Lebanon’s answer to Charles Bukowski,” debuting in English—finds himself on a familiar street turned deadly, and Sabyl Ghoussoub's expat filmmaker gets an unexpected review. And in illustrated pieces, Lena Merhej charts the emotional extremes of a disintegrating affair, and Lamia Ziadé finds herself with a front-row seat for Lebanon’s most famous singer. We thank our guest editors, Olivia Snaije and Mitchell Albert.
This month’s feature presents three Punjabi poets on aging, selected and introduced by Sonnet Mondal.
Through a Glass Brightly: Languages, Politics, and Contemporary Literature from Lebanon
Lebanese literature preceding the civil war represented "a friendly place, a land of milk and honey; the Mediterranean …” The war “swept all that away.”
The Night Post
I write my letter with no idea where to send it.
Checkpoint
He pleaded for him to believe him.
Fairuz in My Grandfather’s Shop
Fairuz was only to sing on stage.
Painful Games
A shattering pain, or intense euphoria
The Jewish Nose
I looked like a Jew, an Islamist, a Portuguese, an Iranian, an idiot.
After Midnight
“You need to take your clothes off,” she continued.
Book Reviews
A Quietly Radical Tale of the Rise and Fall of Communist Russia in Eugene Vodolazkin’s “The Aviator”
Reviewed by Sam George Jackson
Gaël Faye’s Debut Novel, “Small Country,” Sets a Coming-of-Age Story amid the Rwandan Genocide
Reviewed by Emily Roese