Iman Humaydan YounesRezensionen

"Everything around me seemed radiant, silent and bleak"
By sally tarbox on 24 June 2017
Format: Paperback
In four separate - but interlinked - narratives, the author writes from the point of view of each of four women living in a Beirut apartment block. The Civil War is at its height, but life goes on - though a tormented, fractured, unreal sort of life.
"Life continued its cycle and people went back to their work and their thoughts. But when the sounds got closer, everyone started running in all directions, and in a few minutes the street was empty. It returned to its normal state, silent and bleak. It became empty except for their smells, as though the masterful fingers of a magician had passed over their heads and hid them up his sleeves."
As bombing becomes a regular event, the women are overcome variously with depression, madness, plans to flee, a need to live life to the full - or wreak revenge.
It's an evocative book which must give a pretty fair picture of how life was.
I have to say that I found the unremitting awfulness a little wearing by the end - with four separate lives (though they all read rather similarly) perhaps the reader doesn't get into one character enough to feel as deeply as she might.
But certainly brings the era to life

This collection of Lebanese stories in translation (some from French, some Arabic, some were originally written in English) provides a wide array of dark tales. The Civil War is a common theme throughout all of the pieces. The mysteries are often tangled up with mystical threads, lending a very gothic air to some of the stories. Overall, this is a solid collection for anyone who enjoys more surrealist noir and has interest in Lebanon's Civil War.½

I have not completed all the stories in this volume. However, from the ones I have read I would be more likely to label the contents as avant garde or experimental rather than noir.

I had a difficult time relating to these stories. Perhaps I am not as well read as I thought I was or perhaps it is because I have never travelled outside my home country yet alone a country surrounded with such chaos and upheaval. Whatever the case because so many of the stories were written about the already departed and not the here and now I found them hard to connect with.
I did however enjoy the writing. I feel as though little could have been lost in the beauty and fluidity of the prose. Two of my favorite stories were The Bastard by Tarek Abi Samra & Pizza Delivery by Bana Beydoun.

NOTE: This review contains the names of all authors featured in this short story collection. In my experience browsing similar books online, this valuable information is not prominently displayed.

As a reader with a strong interest in exploring Lebanese and other Arabic literature in [English] translation, I had been looking forward to the release of Beirut Noir for many months. After reading a copy I received through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program, I can say my high expectations were satisfied. This collection featured authors whose fiction has been translated and with which I was previously familiar such as Najwa Barakat (author of Oh, Salaam!) and Abbas Beydoun (Blood Test). Also included was Lebanese-Canadian novelist Rawi Hage, who has written several critically acclaimed novels in English (De Niro's Game, Cockroach, Carnival).

I was pleasantly surprised, however, that every other writer featured was unknown to me despite my relatively frequent searches for new and existing translations of modern Lebanese literature. So, I have now read twice as many Lebanese authors thanks to Akashic's Noir collections' Beirut edition. It's worth noting that the collection is edited by another excellent writer whose originally Arabic fiction is already available in English -- Iman Humaydan (sometimes credited as Iman Humaydan Younes, I think).. In addition to the authors already mentioned, this collection includes stories by:

--Tarek Abi Samra;
--Zena El Khalil;
--Bana Beydoun;
--Hyam Yared;
--Leila Eid;
--"The Amazin' Sardine";
--Mazen Maarouf;
--Bachir Hilal;
--Hala Kawtharani;
--Mohamed Abi Samra;
--Alawiya Sobh, and;
--Marie Tawk

Another strength of this collection besides offering a very rare sampling of a range of contemporary Lebanese authors' fiction in translation is that Beirut Noir's stories all deal with the critically important subject of Lebanon's Civil War. If you are a reader who is sometimes interested in exploring new cultures or learning history through fiction, this shared topical focus provides a strong basis for investment of your time in this read, IMHO.

I highly recommend this book to readers very interested in Lebanon and/or contemporary Arabic literature as well as to those who are curious about this area but have no prior knowledge or relevant experience. I hope this proves somewhow useful to some of you; thanks for reading!½

I loved this book. In fact, so far, this has been my favorite in the Noir series. I did wonder at times what may have been lost in translation between Arabic and English but that did not deter me from continuing to read nor did it detract from my enjoyment of this book.

I think the editor made excellent choices in the material. It represented sections of the city of Beirut and while war was an important theme, and how could it not be given the sheer number of years that conflict has permeated the landscape, it was not the only theme.

One of the fun aspects was understanding the experience of natives who both stayed in the city and those that left and returned after time away, often in former colonial enclaves. It was great to see the influences of all the cultures and religious experiences that have shaped Beirut.

My picks? “The Bastard” by Tarek Abi Samra; “Beirut Apples” by Leila Eid; “Rupture” by Bachir Hilal; and “The Thread of Life” by Hala Kawtharani. My least favorite was originally written in English and is called “Dirty Teeth” by the Amazin' Sardine. Still, the writing was very poetic and I have to say, there were some very beautiful endings to some of the stories.

There is a certain poetry and movement to Arabic writing that once you get into the flow (as in the flow in English) you come to appreciate it. I was also happy to note the role – even tangentially, that Australia played in a few of the stories. Having lived in Australia and made several Lebanese friends, I was able to look at and appreciate things they had shared about being Lebanese and being Australian.

Loved it. Recommend it. Keep and open mind and an open heart while reading it.

This is an anthology of stories written by different Lebanese authors. As no surprise, these war stories were, at times, painful to read. However, some stories were poetic. There is the mention of numbers, the soul, dolls and numbers. Beirut is also seen as a "companion of death" and as the "city that dances on its wounds." Although those descriptions made me fall back and regroup, I did not want to add the city of Beirut to my bucket list as a place to see.

I only became excited about the city after reading about the lives of the characters. Their lives made me want to look at the photos and bios of the authors at the back of the book. I wondered did their faces in some way match the character in the story? I wanted to read why they had chosen the plot. Was it a true incident they had experienced, or was it one the author had heard from a friend? I did learn that Alawiya Sobh had a deep interest in issues that women faced. Hyam Yared's interest is that no author should face oppression due to what he or she has written. This is his freedom fight.

Hearing about Beirut on the news throughout the years was another reason why I wanted to read these stories. Each author chooses to portray the war in the finest detail. In "Sails On The Sidewalk," by Marie Tawk, the dead father is remembered just by a cough. In this story, I also learned that our personal lives can become entwined very tightly with the war. So tightly that we use the war as the reason for taking a certain action.

I did not expect to care so deeply about the characters. I also thought the war would add a ho-hum background. I am glad to say Beirut Noir edited by Iman Humaydan surprised me. Thank you for the tour of a city.akashicbooks.com/catalog/beirut-noir/

Beirut Noir is the most disappointing edition in the Akashic noir series I have read so far. I found the stories to be extremely inaccessible and this is after I did some research into the wars that have torn the city apart. Iman Humaydan's introduction is excellent, but only went so far in acting as an aid in understanding the stories included therein.

Each story is focused on a particular neighborhood in Beirut. I wasn't exactly sure how the "noir" aspect would come in, but each story has some element of haunting, whether it's narrated by a still born child or a paralyzed man, the story is suffused with a dark family history, or a compelling memory from childhood. The stories all deal with modern Lebanon with a focal point being the civil war that ended in 1990. Recommended to anyone interested in modern Beirut, Lebanon, and well-written short stories. Not all stories were to my personal taste (some were too Gothic/noir in feel), but I truly enjoyed a few, and see no reason that others who are more into the noir aspect than I am would not enjoy the majority.

Another fantastic mystery collection - this time we're in Beruit, Lebanon. Any book in the Noir series is worth a mystery fan's time, and the latest continues that tradition. #BeruitNoir #Akashicbooks

Beirut Noir is a collection of short stories in the Noir series published by Akashic Books. The stories were originally written in French, English or Arabic and all are set within the city of Beirut. Given their geographic setting, the Lebanese civil war, which engulfed the city from 1975-90, looms large within the stories. Some stories are set within the civil war, while others are shaped by its effects on the city itself, as well as the way the war molded the Lebanese people.

Being in the genre of noir the stories all have dark undercurrents, although perhaps without the persistent violence that can often be found in the genre. For the most part I found them very readable and engaging. Given the setting of the stories in the middle east there were some elements of mystical thinking/believing, which may be commonly found within the residents of that locale, but made the stories a bit harder for me to grasp. Overall, I enjoyed reading this collection.

Het beok beschrijft hoe een vrouw terug gaat naar Libanon, het land van haar jeugd. Dit thema is al veel beschreven en voor een deel vervalt dit boek in het gebruikelijke sentiment. De aanleiding om terug te gaan is er eigenlijk niet. En ook het mislukte huwelijk wordt er bij gesleept. Toch ontbreken een aantal sentimentele elementen, waardoor het boek net boven de middelmaat wordt uitgetild.½

Les voix croisées de femmes de Beyrouth otages de la guerre, des femmes très différentes, avec des désirs très différents, mais le même besoin non pas de survivre, mais de vivre! Et toujours, l'excellence de l'auteur pour nous faire ressentir les choses, même les plus inimaginables, comme de vivre dans une ville en guerre

Un beau roman, très sensible, où l'auteur met tout le talent qu'elle possède à décrire les sens. Une jeune fille se cherche, et cherche ses origines, dans le rythme lent et immobile que son village lui transmet