Transit Beirut

The first image that hits you in Transit Beirut is the cover. Surely that building collapsing amidst crumbling masonry is a vignette from Lebanon's ruinous 16-year-long civil war. But in the foreground you spy a man wielding a bullhorn, seated in what looks like a director's chair. Well then, a movie set, perhaps? In fact, our would-be Spielberg is merely a contractor overseeing the demolition of an old building, to make way for Beirut's much-touted multi-billion dollar reconstruction.  Yet neither initial deduction is entirely wrong. Reminders of conflict run like unresolved leitmotifs throughout Transit Beirut's 21 essays, poems and short stories. Likewise the film-world allusion is curiously apt, too. It suggests the Janus-like nature of Beirut: An unquenchable ability to imagine new futures, and a tendency towards escapism, so as to stem the tide of bitter memory.
Transit Beirut Libanon

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