17.1 What has been written by Lebanese and/or about Lebanon?
Description
This article is from the Lebanon FAQ, by Alaa Dakroub dakroub@leb.net with numerous contributions by others.
17.1 What has been written by Lebanese and/or about Lebanon?
What follows are titles of books by contemporary Lebanese writers
available in English.(They all deal with the war in one aspect or
another).
Kamal Salibi, "A House of Many Mansions, The History of Lebanon
Reconsidered", 1988.
Emily Nasrallah, _Flight Against Time_ trans. Issa J. Boullata.
Charlettetown, P.E.I.: Ragweed Press, 1987.
This is a very touching depiction of an older man's inability to get
used to life in Canada, where his children live and where they want
him to move because of the outbreak of the war in Lebanon. The old
man's attachment to his Lebanese village is conveyed in a simple,
direct style, making his predicament that much more poignant.
Elias Khoury, _Little Mountain_ trans. Maia Tabet. Minneapolis: Univ.
of Minnesota Press, 1989.
What I find really interesting about this book is its post-modern
style. The narrative point view, speaker, time, place, all shift
without warning. It is almost as though Khoury is trying to re-create
stylistically the disjunctions and disruptions occasioned by the
civil war in Lebanon. (his representation of women, however, is
rather sexist in my view)
Etel Adnan, _Sitt Marie Rose_ Post Apollo Press, 1978.
In this work Adnan narrates the experiences of a Maronite woman who
falls in love with a Palestinian and is kidnapped by a group of men
(her co-religionists among whom is an old school friend of hers.
Her experiences are witnessed by her students who are deaf-mutes.
This is a very powerful and disturbing book.
Etel Adnan, "five senses for one death." The Smith Special Issue 18, 1971.
This is a long imagistic poem by Adnan.
Jean Said Makdisi, _Beirut Fragments: A War Memoir_ New York: Persea Books,
1990.
Makdisi is a Palestinian-Lebanese who describes her experiences in war-
torn Beirut. For her those experiences, which she retells in very
moving terms, and her determination to stay in Beirut make her a true
Beiruti. Her love for Beirut and her agony over what is happening to
it are quite clear. Employing different styles (chronicle, descriptive
narrative etc.) in different chapters, Makdisi ends her book with a
very moving poem.
Here's the poem :
"Is it possible to hope that from the rubble of war, which at certain
times seemed to haved ended civilization, a new form might arise and
permit future creativity? There is something of the alpha and omega
in this hope, is there not?
Zbale garbage surrounds us, everywhere we look, there are piles of
rubbish, debris, there is stench and ugliness, we
Yield always we yield to the force of things, we are in danger of
surrendering to despair, and to the ease of
Xenophobia
there is always someone else to blame for what has happened to
us, it's never our fault, oh no, and meanwhile we are
Waiting always waiting, for the others, for the solution, waiting for
them to let the water come gurgling into our empty taps, waiting
for the walls to crumble
Weary of the never ending
War we listen, overwhelmed with sorrow and anger to the the empty
Words the endless empty rhetoric which has only brought more
Violence
while the
Veneer of fashion glitters like a worthless, forgotten coin in a
mound of rubble as it catches the sun.
Ugliness
surrounds us, the ugliness of a broken city, ugly buildings
sprouting up everywhere, ugly streets, whole neighborhoods, the
beauty of mountains is destroyed by utilitarian ugliness, and
Time weighs heavily on us--our days are long, and we carry History
on our backs, an intolerable burden--but History gave us also
Tyre and
Tripoli and
Sidon timeless relics from the past, ancient, beautiful, but
Scarred by war and the suffering of
Refugees
We are a land of refugees, a people of refugees, coming from
everywhere, going nowhere.
Refugees
make beautiful causes, but they are people--their trucks piled
high with the pathetic remnants of former lives, mattresses and
goats and children and stoves--they have found no
Quicksand
in which everyone sinks. We are in a
Prison of violence and forgotten ideals. Still,
Peace will come, and
Oppression
will end, must end, and
Nemesis will come, but not with more
Militias
certainly not with more fighting men, nor with more
Lies the lies told by everyone to preserve the war and to preserve the
Knitting
together of the unravelling whole.
Justice In war there is no Justice, and it is not from War that Justice
will come.
Jbeil ancient Byblos, and
Jounieh with its ancient harbors and stunning bay, emerald mountains
dipping into the blue sea and searching into the azure skies,
they are in danger of drifting away from us, but someday perhaps
there will be
Joy and
Jubilation
when this war ends and the
Internecine
butchery ends. They say
Hope springs eternal and so it does, in spite of the
Guns and the
Fawda the anarchy which threatens us at every turn, because
Earth around us is beautiful: the gray rocks on the sheer cliffs, the
shimmering silver leaves of the olive trees, the deep dark green
of the ancient cedars, the sweet smell of the pine forests, the
oranges dotted like yellow stars in the sparkling groves that lie
by the blue seas. Meanwhile, our
Days pass, drearily, with explosions shattering the stillness of the
nights. Our senses are dulled by the
Catastrophe
that has been upon us here in
Beirut --poor, ugly, stricken Beirut, broken Beirut, unloved city, lost
Beirut, like the child in the tale, torn between two mothers, but
no Solomon here, no true mother.
Beirut pleads to be redeemed, but not by Another Army.
(This poem is more effective as a culmination to Makdisi's memoirs. It
is reproduced here without permission.)
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