Douaihy is the only writer who avoided the trap of compliance, choosing a party over the other, in his narration of the Lebanese war. He does not express any ideological bias through one of his characters. He does not rely on critique to cleanse his own past, or take up a general humanist stand. Such is the case of many works, the authors of which fall in the abyss of interpretation and theory, or attempt to incriminate some of the factions over the others. Douaihy is also the only one to have explored the question of sectarian “differences”, in order to weave an impressive literary ground on its basis

Hassan Daoud, Abbas Baydoun and Jabbour Douaihy: hope and reassurance, in the face of an overwhelming tendency of young authors who are drowning us in degrading sexual pornography, as the only way to fame and popularity.

Jabbour Douaihy’s recent novel, from the perspective of an old leftist, represents an important opportunity to rediscover ourselves

There is a city breaking, Beirut; and a city withdrawn, Tripoli. There is rural community form the mountains, Christians, who are mobilized by, and perhaps even initiate, the violence. Lebanon’s communities are fighting their wars, and possibly others’ wars, with a lack of awareness and the unconsciousness of teenagers who, as long as they dream of their game, go on playing.

The novel’s stake is on digging deep into sectarianism – another aspect of its greatness. It is bound to provoke some commotion, but also to encourage dialogue.

Mohammad Barrada: ‘a novel with a great linguistic wealth, a seductive plot and a humanistic vision’.
“It appears that the question of the novel’s «references» has solicited the critic’s [referring to a previous critique by Nabil Suleiman] interests and made him evoke other texts having the same references to the Syrian Alaouite sect, guided by the novel’s political and ideological dimensions. He goes by unaware of the novel’s pattern, woven by Samar Yazbek, which uses these references as a backdrop, and goes beyond their reality, taking the novel into the realm …