Constructing Lebanon: A Century of Literary Narratives Review

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Constructing Lebanon: A Century of Literary Narratives ReviewPolitical histories of a nation usually ignore its literature or, at most, compress it into an ancillary chapter. For Elise Salem, however, the writings of Lebanese authors are inseparable from the origins of their country and the record of its recent turmoil. A Lebanese native now living in the United States, but frequently returning to the land of her origin, Salem possesses a unique perspective to write such an analysis. She knows the country's brief history and its political complexities intimately. A literary scholar, she demonstrates extensive and perceptive reading of a wide range of fiction, poetry, and drama, as well as awareness of musical theater productions. Her achievement in this book lies in her ability to demonstrate interrelationships, the ways in which literature has been a source of national identity and serves as an ongoing commentary on unsettling events.
Although the book's subject is Lebanon, Salem also hopes that it will be considered a representative study, with a methodology and a manner of understanding that can be applied to other nations. She notes that those who govern rarely consult their nation's body of writing, and she considers that a mistake: "Artists and intellectuals, often historically in a dubious relationship with the state, not only continue to imagine and hence extend the discourse of the nation but, in more palpable way, participate in remembering, recording, and transforming it."
Salem's eloquent Afterword reiterates, frames, and adds a rich dimension of commentary. It concludes with this possibility: "[These] provocative narratives suggest a new language, vocabulary, style, approach, and thematics that expand the possibilities for Lebanon. They are, after all, the nation's stories and, through fictions, the most telling." Literature was central to Lebanon's origin. Salem's hope is that it will be equally important in helping it face its present crises.Constructing Lebanon: A Century of Literary Narratives OverviewThrough an examination of Lebanese literary narratives and musical theater, Constructing Lebanon offers a vehicle for understanding Lebanon's cultural and political evolution as a nation over the last century. It redresses the lack of scholarship on the symbiotic relationship between nation and culture, especially in Arab studies, by presenting both descriptive and prescriptive models of how a nation can be "read" through literary productions.Elise Salem provides valuable close readings of many Lebanese literary texts written in Arabic, including lesser-known fiction, popular culture narratives, and plays written and produced during the Lebanese civil war and postwar period. Using this framework, Salem examines the construction of nationalist mythology in Lebanon and illustrates how nationalist and regional politics influence cultural productions. Rereading Gibran Khalil Gibran, for example, with the idea of nation in mind reveals that his works are replete with formative ideas on Lebanese identity. Besides analyzing an extensive body of literature from the 20th century, Salem also draws from cultural productions, especially the popular Rahbani and Fayruz musicals that proved to be central to Lebanese consciousness. This pioneering attempt to propel the study of Lebanese nationalism beyond the confines of ideology and political parties sharpens our understanding of this evolving nation, from its early inception and development to its demise and current reconstruction.

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