ABOUT THE BOOK:
Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh is a poignant epistolary novel that captures the chaos and heartbreak of the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990) through the unsent letters of its protagonist, Asmahan. Torn between leaving Beirut and staying in a city she loves, Asmahan writes to friends, lovers, family, and even Beirut, offering a fragmented yet profoundly personal account of war’s destruction. Through her letters, al-Shaykh explores themes of exile, identity, resilience, and the psychological toll of the conflict, painting a vivid and unromanticized portrait of Lebanon’s turbulent history.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Hanan al-Shaykh is an award-winning Lebanese novelist, playwright, and journalist whose work explores themes of gender, identity, and social constraints in the Arab world. Born in Beirut in 1944, she studied in Cairo before launching a career that has produced internationally acclaimed novels such as The Story of Zahra, Women of Sand and Myrrh, Beirut Blues, and Only in London, alongside short-story collections and plays. Her memoir, The Locust and the Bird, offers a deeply personal look at love and survival within an arranged marriage. Translated into over 20 languages, her writings have challenged societal norms, earning praise from critics like Edward Said, who called her “the premier woman writer in Arabic.” Now based in London, she continues to shape literary discourse through her books, lectures, and international engagements.
REVIEW:
Epistolary novels always leave me with mixed emotions. There’s a sense of privilege in being allowed into a character’s innermost thoughts, but also an unsettling feeling of voyeurism, as if I’m reading someone else’s mail. Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh amplifies this effect.
As I read Asmahan’s (or Asma, as she prefers to be called) letters, I felt like a double onlooker—witnessing both her internal struggles and the external chaos of Lebanon’s Civil War.
Some of her letters are addressed to people—friends, lovers, figures from her past—but many are not. She writes to the war itself, to her city, to the land she walks on. She treats abstract concepts as though they are close companions, voicing her frustrations, longings, and grief.
Though this novel was written in the 1990s, so much of it still feels painfully relevant. I couldn’t help but draw parallels between Asma’s experiences and mine, grappling with the same impossible choices; though the civil war may be over, but Lebanon continues to be a place where people are forced to decide whether to stay or go, and always doubting the decision taken, no matter what it is. Her reflections on those who left and her letters to her loved ones, eerily feel familiar to the resentment I hold to my best friends who have migrated. She also writes on the war’s shifting alliances, and on foreign interventions that claimed to bring peace but ultimately bred dependency. I remember sitting with friends, always being nostalgic to a different Beirut, to a past Beirut. Nostalgic to the days we lived before the economic collapse, then those we lived before covid, to the plans we made before the blast, and the ones we made before the most recent war. It’s like we are always pinning to the days that passed just before the most recent events, and I felt that this way in which I romanticise Beirut, Asmahan often writes about it in her letters, and she criticizes the war for fooling her into finding its chaos beautiful, mourning the fact that her homeland will never be the same.
The title Beirut Blues feels so fitting. This novel aches with longing, loss, and resilience. I followed Asma’s internal debate about whether to stay in Beirut or leave like so many others had, and I felt the weight of her choice, since it is my daily internal struggle. Her letters don’t feel like genuine attempts at communication; I often wondered whether they were ever sent at all. Instead, they seem to exist as a way for her to process her emotions, to make sense of the world around her. Each letter is a fragmented glimpse into her life, a fleeting thought or unresolved feeling, a moment of stillness in the ever-shifting reality of war.
Al-Shaykh’s writing is evocative, and I was struck by how she portrays Asma as both disoriented and deeply perceptive. For much of the novel, Asma is physically immobilized—often confined to her bed, paralyzed by depression, even as bombs explode around her and snipers roam the rooftops. But while her body remains still, her mind is constantly in motion. She drifts between memories, random musings, and sharp observations, drawing connections between the trivial and the profound. One moment she’s thinking about makeup, the next she’s reflecting on violence. The past and present blur together in a way that left me feeling unmoored, much like Asma herself.
What struck me most was the novel’s treatment of death. Given that Beirut Blues is set in the middle of a war, I expected death to loom over every page, yet it is barely discussed. At first, I thought this was another one of Asma’s avoidance tactics, but I soon realized it was something deeper. Death in her world isn’t an abstract fear or a hidden menace—it’s an everyday reality, too obvious to dwell on. It is as inevitable as the rat in her kitchen or the beating of her own heart. Instead, the novel finds its emotional weight in fleeting moments of clarity—those brief flashes of undeniable truth that guide both Asma and the reader through the narrative’s otherwise meandering path.
Ultimately, Beirut Blues is a novel about loss and recovery. Through Asma’s letters—some heartbreaking, some hopeful, some defiant—I found myself reflecting on how loss isn’t always catastrophic. Sometimes, what we recover isn’t what we expected, and sometimes, loss doesn’t lead to restoration but to discovery. Reading this novel felt like getting lost in Beirut itself—winding through its streets, caught between its beauty and destruction, its past and uncertain future. And like Asma, I finished the book with more questions than answers, but with a deeper understanding of what it means to love a place that constantly breaks your heart.
