REVIEW | I Remember Beirut by Zeina Abirached
AUTHOR: Zeina Abirached
TRANSLATOR: Edward Gauvin
GENRE: Graphic Memoir
ISBN: 1467744581
RELEASE DATE: Aug 2014
PAGES: 96 PAGES
WRITTEN LANGUAGE: French
EDITION LANGUAGE: English
★★★★
I read this book as part of the From and About Asia Reading Project.
I Remember Beirut is the second graphic memoir by Zeina Abirached I read. It’s shorter, however, it covered a longer time, from her childhood until the Lebanese Civil War was over. It’s half the size of the other book, A Game for Swallows, but I enjoyed it even more and was in tears when I finished reading.
Compares to the first graphic memoir, which had a theme run through the whole book, the narration of this book is more like a “slice of life” style. Full of pieces of memories of her childhood, Zeina showed us what’s important in her war-filled childhood, and what is valuable for her today.
Illustration from the book, picture from the internet.
Many characters in A Game for Swallows appeared in this book also. Made this a perfect follow-up after reading the former. And I did enjoy to know the characters a little bit more. But I think if you read this book solely, and are introduced to these characters only from this book, it’s still lovely due to the “slice-of-life-ness”.
The little section talking about how the civil war ended, provided us some information after the “ending” of dramatic events and showed us insights on how people continued on with their lives.
At the end of the book, we also get to see a bit of the author after she grew up. What struck me is the unexpected homesickness I suddenly got after reading this book. Towards the end, the adult version of the author suddenly became very relatable especially to people who are far away from home like me. I have to admit that, the longer I haven’t visited home, due to covid, the more nostalgia I got from reading anything and everything. And this little book falls into this category that makes me emotional. Also, the author’s illustration of the interaction she had with her family after she grew up hit hard. It’s so hard to imagine something this short, can be this powerful.