I just finished a great book – Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury, a Palestinian born in Lebanon. It’s historical fiction and recounts the journey from Galilee to the refugee camps in Beirut when Palestinians were expelled by Israelis in 1948, referred to by Palestinians as nakbe, or “the disaster”. It made me wish that I could read/understand Arabic, since the translation showed such an intoxicating style of writing. The stories that Khoury collected from the camps take on a mythic quality, and I think a lot of those stories are myth by now, having been retold over and over and rarely written down over the last 57 years.

Today, I started reading a new book called Heart of Beirut: Reclaiming the Bourj. So far it seems absurdly optimistic about Lebanon’s future, but who knows. Somehow, even with having read a lot of books, talked to a lot of people, and experienced living here for many months, I feel less confident that I truly grasp the situation here than I did when I arrived. It really feels like the deeper one gets, the more there is.