A sleek, well-rendered work to wake readers up to the plight of the Lebanese people.
A French Lebanese professor and author assesses a catastrophic summer in his hometown.
As the economic meltdown intensified in a city already suffering from political and social strife, the situation was further compounded by the pandemic and the shattering explosion that occurred at the Beirut port on Aug. 4, 2020. In a stylistically arresting, truncated first-person narrative, Majdalani lays bare the saga of modern-day Beirut since it gained independence from the French mandate in 1945. The city’s “singular identity…also proved to be Lebanon’s defining characteristic for many years: a nation straddling the great cultures of the East and the West, a crossroads, a herald of coexistence, openness, cultural exchange and integration.” However, as the author shows, a series of corrupt leaders over the decades created “a system of governance that was entirely based on clientelistic mafia practices,” which drained the public coffers. The effect of this bankrupt economy is ever present in this urgent diary, which begins just before July 1, 2020. Majdalani writes about how he was considering buying land in the mountains to get his family out of the crowded, pandemic-stricken city. At the time, banks begin refusing withdrawals, the appliances in his Beirut apartment broke down, and the effects of rampant inflation grew alarming. Though the author and his wife still met friends at the few restaurants still hanging on, the number of businesses closing was staggering, as were constant problems involving garbage accumulation and a lack of social services. Then came the explosion, when 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate abandoned at the city’s port hangar resulted in more than 200 deaths, 7,500 injuries, and billions in damages. “The slow, meticulous sedimentation of time,” writes Majdalani, “was swept away in a few seconds by the blast of a vengeful and incomprehensibly cruel present.” The abrupt ending will leave readers wanting more, but the author gives us an important glimpse of a city that is often ignored in contemporary media.
A sleek, well-rendered work to wake readers up to the plight of the Lebanese people.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63542-178-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.
Bearing witness to oppression.
Award-winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow Coates probes the narratives that shape our perception of the world through his reports on three journeys: to Dakar, Senegal, the last stop for Black Africans “before the genocide and rebirth of the Middle Passage”; to Chapin, South Carolina, where controversy erupted over a writing teacher’s use of Between the World and Me in class; and to Israel and Palestine, where he spent 10 days in a “Holy Land of barbed wire, settlers, and outrageous guns.” By addressing the essays to students in his writing workshop at Howard University in 2022, Coates makes a literary choice similar to the letter to his son that informed Between the World and Me; as in that book, the choice creates a sense of intimacy between writer and reader. Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual. In Dakar, he is haunted by ghosts of his ancestors and “the shade of Niggerology,” a pseudoscientific narrative put forth to justify enslavement by portraying Blacks as inferior. In South Carolina, the 22-acre State House grounds, dotted with Confederate statues, continue to impart a narrative of white supremacy. His trip to the Middle East inspires the longest and most impassioned essay: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes. In his complex analysis, he sees the trauma of the Holocaust playing a role in Israel’s tactics in the Middle East: “The wars against the Palestinians and their Arab allies were a kind of theater in which ‘weak Jews’ who went ‘like lambs to slaughter’ were supplanted by Israelis who would ‘fight back.’” Roiled by what he witnessed, Coates feels speechless, unable to adequately convey Palestinians’ agony; their reality “demands new messengers, tasked as we all are, with nothing less than saving the world.”
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780593230381
Page Count: 176
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.
Documenting perilous times.
In his most recent behind-the-scenes account of political power and how it is wielded, Woodward synthesizes several narrative strands, from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel to the 2024 presidential campaign. Woodward’s clear, gripping storytelling benefits from his legendary access to prominent figures and a structure of propulsive chapters. The run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tense (if occasionally repetitive), as a cast of geopolitical insiders try to divine Vladimir Putin’s intent: “Doubt among allies, the public and among Ukrainians meant valuable time and space for Putin to maneuver.” Against this backdrop, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham implores Donald Trump to run again, notwithstanding the former president’s denial of his 2020 defeat. This provides unwelcome distraction for President Biden, portrayed as a thoughtful, compassionate lifetime politico who could not outrace time, as demonstrated in the June 2024 debate. Throughout, Trump’s prevarications and his supporters’ cynicism provide an unsettling counterpoint to warnings provided by everyone from former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley to Vice President Kamala Harris, who calls a second Trump term a likely “death knell for American democracy.” The author’s ambitious scope shows him at the top of his capabilities. He concludes with these unsettling words: “Based on my reporting, Trump’s language and conduct has at times presented risks to national security—both during his presidency and afterward.”
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668052273
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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