Water on Fire: A Memoir of War

by Tarek El-Ariss

In this evocative, insightful memoir, a leading voice in Middle Eastern Studies revisits his childhood in war-torn Lebanon and his family’s fascinating history, coming to terms with trauma and sexuality.Water on Fire tells a story of immigration that starts in a Beirut devastated by the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90), continues with experiences of displacement in Europe and Africa, moves to northeastern American towns battered by lake-effect snow and economic woes, and ends in New York City on 9/11. A story of loss, but also of evolution, it models a kind of resilience inflected with humor, daring, and irreverence.Alternating between his perspective as a child and as an adult, Tarek El-Ariss explores how we live with trauma, poignantly illustrating the profound impact of war on our perception of the world, our fears and desires. His memoir is at once historical and universal, intellectual and introspective, the outcome of a long and painful process of excavation that reveals internal turmoil and the predicament of conflict and separation. A contemporary “interpretation of dreams” dealing with monsters, invisible creatures, skin outbreaks, and the sea, it is a book about objects and elements, like water and fire, and about how encountering these elements triggers associations, connecting present and past, time and space.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Middle East, Biography

265 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 23, 2024

About the author

Tarek El-Ariss (PhD Cornell - 2004) is the James Wright Professor and Chair of Middle Eastern Studies at Dartmouth College. His research interests include contemporary Arabic literature, visual culture, and new media; 18th- and 19th-century French and Arabic philosophy and travel writing; and literary theory. He is author of Trials of Arab Modernity: Literary Affects and the New Political (2013) and Leaks, Hacks, and Scandals: Arab Culture in the Digital Age (2019), and editor of The Arab Renaissance: A Bilingual Anthology of the Nahda (2018). In 2021, he received a Guggenheim fellowship to complete his new book, Water on Fire: A Memoir of War (2024).

Reviews

[Nada Elshabrawy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written and devastatingly honest memoir. Quietly exposing the self without fixed labels, daring us to imagine nonbinary subjectivity and how freeing it might be.



The longer one stay in that house, the more unsafe I feel, and the more imminent danger becomes. And the minute I escape and find a new one, the preparation to move gets underway imme-diately, frantically.

[Brenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some words I’d use here: visceral, deeply intimate, exploratory. Loosey-goosey with the timeline in a way that forces you to reevaluate when and where you are. Reading this felt like I was inside the author’s personal diary, which was both fascinating and a little uncomfortable at the same time, like a war between objective and subjective perspectives at the same time.

(Also a little rewarding when the author conversationally discusses historical events I’ve been learning about recently— the click of understanding feels like a small success!)

[dejah_thoris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Received an Advance Review Copy in exchange for this review. My apologies to the publishers this took so long to do. I've schlepped this book forward and back across the country to two conferences thinking I'd review it some evening, but never did. Now that I've had time to re-read all my dogeared pages, I think I can give a suggestion of its excellence.

First and foremost I appreciate all the grounding in place and setting. As an ignorant American, I knew little about what distinguishes Lebanon from its neighbors and have heard nothing about their civil war. I'm also privileged to have never lived through such conflicts. Reading refugee accounts is like lighting a statue from a new angle, and modern ones feel so much more real than those from the mid-twentieth century. Prepare for discomfort and sadness.

Then there's the writing and its layers. El-Ariss' memoir would satisfy every bookclub's amateur analyst with the internal references that link the story across time and place. One example is the 'humane' sacrifice of his pet fish by killing them via Dettol, which is later echoed with the sacrifices of the dogs of Beirut at the end of the war. There's many more for those who appreciate literary writing, and this haunting book will stay with you as a shadow of what clings to its author.

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love both the cover and the title of this book: both are just so sleek which is what initially caught my eye to pick up this book! That and it being about Lebanon since I have relatives via marriage from there and while I know that Lebanon has been in war, I do not know much about it. This book jumped around a bit I prefer something that follows through more. The writing style was not for me either. I found it interesting how El-Ariss grappled with the war as a child and how that followed him, and his experiences coming to America and how 9/11 changed the way he teaches. Honestly, my dad is a HUGE history and specifically war reader so I am going to recommend this to him. I am not too big on reading about war, but that is something I knew about myself before picking this up. So if you like war and history I think you would like this. I wonder if someone older too (like 1980s and before) would be able to relate to some of the events more or having a memory of events like 9/11 makes the reading experience different. And if I just aged you there, I am very sorry but don't feel old you have wisdom!

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

The son of a successful Lebanese family slowly recalls the war that tore his country apart. The older siblings were sent to safety in other countries. The insanity of the divide between Syria and Lebanon, and the further destruction by Israel. The journey of the author from civil war on to 09-11 NYC. The reality of defining as queer well before it became normalized after the AIDS epidemic demonized it.

The echoes of violence and reinvention within both nightmares and dreams. And always, the salty scent of the sea.

[Katie Kerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every line was poetic. “The child of war can never leave his mother behind. He simply grows up, caring for war like an aging parent. He must preserve it, embrace it as he falls asleep, keeping it warm on those cold winter nights. He returns it to his womb, in his belly, where no intruders can ever find it or awaken it in the night. There, they become one. But when the morning sun rises, children always come out to play.”

[deepika · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book appeared to me at an appropriate time while isreal is bombing lebanon ruthlessly. the author lays his life out raw to show how war affects a child and how it manifests in his adulthood.

on page 38, he mentions ‘ bombing cities back into the stone age’ in reference to Beirut’s bombing. we never learn from history, we strive to repeat it.

i cant help but think how the author is feeling right now, i hope hes is doing okay.

[Valerie Sherman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author is a lovely writer, with phrases and vignettes that take your breath away. I appreciated the necessity or impulse to tell the story overall in a fractured, nonlinear way that often doesn't have context, but I often could have used more context to really feel the emotional impact. Makes me want to read more literature and history from this era (and this author!).

[sharber · Rating 4 out of 5]

at a loss for words now so -->

https://brooklynrail.org/2024/06/book...

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good

[Lizavieta · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was insightful