Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Advanced
Title details for Beirut 2020 by Charif Majdalani - Available

Beirut 2020

by Charif Majdalani
Ruth Diver
ebook
Read a sample Read a sample
World Literature Today: Notable Translation of the Year  
PopMatters: Best Book of the Year 
Told in elegant, evocative prose, a devastating and necessary testament to the August explosion that thoughtfully examines the crises that preceded it and its aftermath.
At the start of the summer of 2020, in a Lebanon ruined by economic crisis and political corruption, in an exhausted Beirut still rising up for true democracy while the world was paralyzed by the coronavirus, Charif Majdalani set about writing a journal. He intended to bear witness to this terrible, confusing time, and perhaps endure it by putting it into words. Using small, everyday interactions—with fellow restaurant patrons, repairmen, the father of his wife’s patient, a young Syrian refugee—as openings to address larger systemic problems, he explains how events in Lebanon’s recent history led to this point.
Then, on August 4, the explosion of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate in the port of Beirut devastated the city and the country. Majdalani’s chronicle suddenly became a record of the catastrophe, which left more than two hundred dead and thousands injured, and the massive public outcry that followed. In the midst of the senseless chaos and grief, however, he continues to find cause for hope in the kindness and resilience of those determined to stay and rebuild.
Expand title description text
Publisher: Other Press

Kindle Book

  • Release date: August 3, 2021

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9781635421798
  • Release date: August 3, 2021

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9781635421798
  • File size: 1619 KB
  • Release date: August 3, 2021
Loading
Loading

Formats

Kindle Book
OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

Biography & Autobiography History Sociology Nonfiction

Languages

English

World Literature Today: Notable Translation of the Year  
PopMatters: Best Book of the Year 
Told in elegant, evocative prose, a devastating and necessary testament to the August explosion that thoughtfully examines the crises that preceded it and its aftermath.
At the start of the summer of 2020, in a Lebanon ruined by economic crisis and political corruption, in an exhausted Beirut still rising up for true democracy while the world was paralyzed by the coronavirus, Charif Majdalani set about writing a journal. He intended to bear witness to this terrible, confusing time, and perhaps endure it by putting it into words. Using small, everyday interactions—with fellow restaurant patrons, repairmen, the father of his wife’s patient, a young Syrian refugee—as openings to address larger systemic problems, he explains how events in Lebanon’s recent history led to this point.
Then, on August 4, the explosion of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate in the port of Beirut devastated the city and the country. Majdalani’s chronicle suddenly became a record of the catastrophe, which left more than two hundred dead and thousands injured, and the massive public outcry that followed. In the midst of the senseless chaos and grief, however, he continues to find cause for hope in the kindness and resilience of those determined to stay and rebuild.
Expand title description text
Biography & Autobiography History Sociology Nonfiction