Un roman tragi-comique dont l’action se déroule dans un pays qui panse ses plaies (le Liban des années 1990), au sein d’une demeure familiale décatie (stuc délabré, plancher qui grince), et qui dépeint une galerie de personnages attachants et contrastés

I was trying to buy a banned book in Damascus by one of Syria’s top literary figures, and to my surprise it seemed to be going rather well.

Un papillon défiant les lignes de l’écriture
Dans son nouveau livre, Le Mont aux lis : histoires de songes (Dar Al-Mada), Samar Yazbek (1970) pose tout d’abord des questions liées au genre littéraire.

“Banning books is normal for us here, it’s funny, even a little absurd. It’s not like Europe ‚”Ooh, I’ve been censored”

Interview by Zahra Hankir, NOW Lebanon

NOW Lebanon: Your novel, June Rain, has received much praise. The work tackles one of the trickier aspects of the development of civil conflict in Lebanon: the 1957 rivalry in Zghorta between the Douaihy family and the Franjiehs and Mouawads which led to the Meziara church killing. Why did you choose to address these topics, specifically?
Jabbour Douaihy: As a matter of fact it was [the late journalist] Samir Kassir who gave me the idea of writing a literary novel about the background of the massacre …

The literary event ‘Les belles etrangeres’ which, each year in France promotes foreign literature is dedicated to Lebanon in its 2007 edition.

Mohammad Abisamra is among the 12 authors chosen for this event.