Beirut fragments: bearing witness to a war

Jean Said Makdisi arrived in Beirut as an outsider: a Palestinian refugee who had escaped Jerusalem in 1948 and had grown up across Egypt and America. But in 1975, as Lebanon's capital became the locus of a ferocious civil war, Jean decided to stay. As sectarian violence mounted and the city collapsed around her, she documented it all: the cars that exploded in the street; the high-rise buildings that turned to dust; the museums that became military checkpoints; the bifurcation of the city; and the brutality of the Israeli siege in 1982. Taking in the 14 years of civil war, Makdisi lays bare the violent face of conflict, meticulously documenting its impact on every aspect of civilian life - from the fearsome whistle of shellfire, to the mundanity of queuing for food, to the constant, wandering search for lost loved ones. Intimate and profound, this book is a memoir of a city under siege and an impassioned defence of collective humanity.

Genres

HistoryTravel

Language

English

Publisher

Profile Books

ISBN

9781805228745