Name: I Remember Beirut
ISBN: 9781467744584

Zeina Abirached

Zeina Abirached, author of the award-winning graphic novel A Game for Swallows, returns with a powerful collection of wartime memories. Abirached was born in Lebanon in 1981. She grew up in Beirut as fighting between Christians and Muslims divided the city streets. Follow her past cars riddled with bullet holes, into taxi cabs that travel where buses refuse to go, and n outings to collect shrapnel from the sidewalk. With striking black-and-white artwork, Abirached recalls the details of ordinary life inside a war zone.

I Remember Beirut

Sarah Sammis

Zeina Abirached, author of the award-winning graphic novel A Game for Swallows, returns with a powerful collection of wartime memories. Abirached was born in Lebanon in 1981. She grew up in Beirut as fighting between Christians and Muslims divided the city streets. Follow her past cars riddled with bullet holes, into taxi cabs that travel where buses refuse to go, and on outings to collect shrapnel from the sidewalk. With striking black-and-white artwork, Abirached recalls the details of ordinary life inside a war zone.

Madhuri Gubbala

Love the illustrations and got to learn some very interesting details about life in Lebanon during their civil war.

Yoomi

I received this as a free copy from NetGalley for an honest review.

My first thought was that the illustrations reminded me of Persepolis. However, Zeina Abirached's storytelling is very different. Told in vignettes, she tells us "I remember...". She doesn't talk about the politics, just about her daily life in the middle of a civil war. The stark illustrations are fitting. I always find it hard to believe that people can remember every detail of events that happened when they were 8 years old. Here, what she remembers is highlighted. What she doesn't is left out. There are whole pages without any text, like a soundless memory. It left me wanting to read more by her, about her, and about Beirut.