Beirut Fragments: A War Memoir

by Jean Said Makdisi

A new edition of the widely acclaimed account of the civilian experience of fifteen years of war in Beirut- "a profound, heartbreaking book" (Los Angeles Times Book Review), "an impassioned cry against indifference" (New York Times Book Review), "a work ringing with truth and insight" (Arab Book World)-now with an Afterword about the postwar years. A New York Times Book Review Notable Book An intensely personal yet timelessly crafted portrait of life in a worn-torn city, Beirut Fragments spans the years of the civil war in Lebanon, 1975-1990. When thousands fled, Jean Said Makdisi chose to stay. She raised three sons, taught English and Humanities at Beirut University College-and she wrote. She records the breakdown of society and the physical destruction of Beirut, the massacres of Sabra and Shatila, the Israeli Invasion, everyday acts of terrorism, the struggle to maintain ordinary routines amid chaos, and the incredible spirit of a people. A Palestinian, a Christian, a woman who has lived in Jerusalem, Cairo, the United States, and Beirut, Jean Said Makdisi uses the migrations of her own life as a paradigm which helps elucidate many of the conflicts in the region. The new afterword covers the postwars years, from the last ceasefire to the present day.

Genres: Middle East, Lebanon, History, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Biography Memoir

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1990

About the author

Jean Said Makdisi was born in Jerusalem and studied in Cairo and the United States. She is the author of Beirut Fragments: A War Memoir, a New York Times Notable Book. She lives in Beirut.

(from http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Autho...)

Reviews

[Mbhabibti · Rating 3 out of 5]

First of all, I have nothing but respect for those that willingly stayed in Lebanon all these years, this author among them. Beirut is a city that my loved ones all left, and that I long to return to (and nearly did, much to the horror of my mother and grandmother).

So if you handed me 50 different memoirs of 50 different Levantine people, I would read every one. I never tire of hearing these stories, and this book was no exception. It echoed things older people have told us, though in less harrowing detail—I'll never forget a relative casually mentioning how he had to step over dead bodies on the way to work during the Lebanese Civil War.

Whether the detachment in speech is generational or a consequence of living through so many traumatic events, the memoir’s tone felt strikingly similar: These are the facts, this is all that we went through, but we endure.

The tears of Jerusalem have spilled over and flooded Beirut, and Jerusalem and Beirut are sister cities in agony. Jerusalem is the vertical line, Beirut the traverse: Together they form the cross that we carry today.

Thanks to Netgalley, Doubleday Books, and the author for this eARC!

[Sidney Luckett · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful and moving reflection on the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990). I am left in awe of those who managed to live through the brutalities of that war

It is full of striking passages. One of the shortest and very relevant to the present with Syrian refugees in Lebanon numbering a quarter of the more permanent inhabitants of Lebanon, the Lebanese:
We are a land of refugees, a people of refugees, coming from everywhere, going nowhere

[Marwan Asmar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beirut Fragments is a sad tale, a war memoir as termed by the author Jean Said Makdisi who lived through the tearing down of a city as factions and war lords hurled missiles and bombs at each other while indiscriminately killing civilians in the process. Through her eyes, and utterances the reader is introduced to the daily tribulations of the sounds of shells and missiles as they pass through the neighborhood to the bomb shelter which she, her husband, young children and many others have to go down to almost every night for safety. She paints a daily picture where municipal services ground to a halt, and were grime infests the streets and buildings because garbage is no longer collected. Amazingly as well, she footnotes, the daily lives of people, in between going to work, having to quickly zigzag through the streets to get back to their homes, pick up their children and quickly get down to the bomb shelter in between the recurring cuts of electricity and the shortage of food. Politics is rarely mentioned, the stress is on the people, the camaraderie that develops between them despite their different religions and the view "we are in the same boat". Its people in a war of factions and eternal powers. Makdsi, a professor at the university, says she and her husband made a collective decision not to leave the city and the country as so many people were doing on daily basis but wanted to stand up to the evil forces by simply being there. We get a very real glimpse of a family and community not of war but under war, having to endure whatever is thrown at them and stubbornly points out she will not leave, despite, her at times faltering spirits. She paints a sad angry picture of the Israeli invasion of Beirut when Israeli soldiers deliberately defecated on the belongings in houses, flats and offices in the buildings they occupied as revenge against the people. Beirut Fragments is written in beautiful language by a Palestinian long educated in English schools, went to university in the United States but made Beirut her home.

[Amira · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the first book of its kind I've read - one about the personal experience of suffers if war, and a book about Beirut.

Before this book I had a very naive knowledge of Beirut - I knew that a war had taken place there, the details of which I was completely ignorant of. The word Beirut conjured up words like beautiful, elegant and cosmopolitan in my mind, very far from words like violence, hatred and death.

I instantly connected with the author's insight of being from a multi-cultural background, Palestine, Egypt, the US and Lebanon, and I immediately connected with her Eastern vs. Western culture clash.

I read the book surprisingly quickly, which I suppose is an indication that I enjoyed reading it.

But I was disappointed with the lack of literary devices and what I thought were sometimes very mundane, conventional ways of describing the witnessed events.

After researching the author, I discovered that she is one sister of the famous, late Palestinian scholar Edward Said, author of the renowned 'Orientalism'. This knowledge has spurred me onto reading more and more about the Middle East, its history and politics, which I suppose is a great credit to this book that I found by chance in the discount section of a famous Cairo bookstore.

[Gea · Rating 5 out of 5]

After years of not reading about the Lebanese war, not to try to forget but simply not to remember the feelings, the misery, the death and destruction, the anger of a 15 years useless war, I fell Into this book and a barrage of memories and emotions filled my space taking me back to those years when I was a child born in one of the most unreasonable and chaotic war. The author gives a realistic, honest and true description of her day to day life, living the moment not knowing if there will be another, a state that some 2 millions other Lebanese experienced for 15 years. Thank you Jean for sharing your story, away from any glorification of any faction or warlord but simply focusing on the human being experience which everyone seems to forget

[Anthony Keane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a keen and vibrant insight into life in that magnificent city

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

It being published before the end of the war makes it all the more interesting.
Very poetic but nonetheless extremely real and an important read in the midst of the endless cold academic analysis of the war.

[Jerry]

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[Abe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beirut Fragments is a first hand account of the tragedy of war in Lebanon. The unwarranted invasion of Lebanon by Israel in 1982 is yet another Israeli action that turned neutral attitudes into hatred.
I lived and worked in Beirut during the civil war that began in 1975. When I read Jean Said Makdisi's account of the 1982 invasion it revived in me all the memories I harbored about my experiences. The author's portrayal of events and the affect it had on the people who lived there during this invasion is a story that should be read by everyone.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This eyewitness "journal" of the Lebanese Civil War conveys the moving struggles to preserve the threads of daily life and the ever-present fear and rage at the destruction of Beirut. Makdisi records her determination to survive the shelling, bombing, and killing that started in 1975 and was accelerated by the Israeli invasion in 1982.
Huddled in shelters and faced with intermittent supplies of water and electricity, Makdisi and her neighbors grew increasingly angry at the callousness of the political leaders--Lebanese, Arab, and Western--who prolonged the fighting.

[London · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Shelf: Accepted. Favored Authoress status pending.

[Bridget · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great insight into what it was like to live in West Beirut during the long Lebanese Civil War.