Literature and Arts from the Center of the World
In this wide-ranging essay, the writer revisits life before and after the civil war, participates in Lebanon's revolution, imagines the country's monetary implosion, and contemplates the Port of Beirut explosion—all while weighing the social terms of Lebanon's political renewal.
Overcome by the staggering violence of the explosion that ravaged Beirut in August, Paris-based playwright and director Wajdi Mouawad suggests that a world public forum must condemn Lebanon's ruling class.
The Chileans hold up a paradoxical mirror to us: they show us the worst of ourselves (the carelessness of our institutions and the contempt for the living that characterizes our addiction to the tragic) and the path to follow: respect for life until its last breath.