Douaihy’s novels honor Lebanon’s diversity, culture, and landscape

From celebrated author Jabbour Douaihy — whose novels pay homage to the vibrance, diversity and extraordinary landscape and culture Lebanon is known for — comes “Firefly.” It is a story that dives into northern Lebanon and explores sectarian tensions that eventually led to the Lebanese Civil War. Newly translated into English by Paula Haydar and Nadine Sinno, readers follow Nizam Al-Alami, a young boy who has grown up among Muslim and Christian communities in Tripoli and Hawra.
Douaihy first introduces Mahmoud Yasser Al-Alami, a Muslim entrepreneur in the coastal town of Mina in Tripoli, Lebanon, whose businesses bring him more trouble than success. While politics reign supreme for Mahmoud at his bookshop, where discussions of the nationalization of the Suez Canal and the Free Officers Revolt of Egypt occupy his time, at home his wife Sabah takes care of children Maysaloun and Nizam. They spend their summers in Hawra to escape the heat, and there Nizam runs into his Christian neighbor’s orchard where he falls in love with Touma and Rakheema Abu Shaheen, a childless couple who welcome Nizam with open arms.

When troubles befall the Al-Alamis, Nizam stays with Touma and Rakheema. He grows up among the Christian community in Hawra and eventually makes his way to Beirut to study law at a Jesuit university. Soon, Nizam is hosting communist comrades as the city begins reaching its boiling point. With no religion listed on his ID card, Nizam is caught in a sectarian struggle with too many religious influences and no single religious identity. He is involved in marches and protests, witnesses death and destruction and comes within inches of death as Beirut and its residents are divided into a Muslim East and Christian West.

Douaihy writes of a young man’s struggles in a changing city where even though he is a bridge between worlds, he is viewed with stigma by both sides. Among the people that created Lebanon, who are as diverse as the landscape, a boy with multiple identities finds that not one can fill the void of belonging in this fast-paced novel. Nizam’s fragmented life mimics that of Beirut, as the boy and city must overcome the factions that want to keep them divided.

Critically acclaimed, the late author’s novels were nominated four times for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.