The agonizing tailspin of a once-vibrant Middle Eastern city is depicted in real time in Beirut 2020: Diary of the Collapse by author Charif Majdalani (Moving the Palace). Starting in the summer of 2020, the diary is Majdalani's attempt to cope with his beloved Lebanon's collapsing infrastructure and economy. In 75 brief entries, Majdalani ruminates on the promising, yet troubled, history of his homeland and its once glitzy capital, Beirut.
Lebanon, he says, was for many years "a nation straddling the great cultures of the East and the West, a crossroads, a herald of coexistence, openness, cultural exchange and integration." Majdalani then contrasts its past to the jarring realities of the present, one dominated by a corrupt government of former warlords indifferent to a struggling economy further eviscerated by Covid-19 lockdowns. Moving from poignant interactions with restaurant goers and repairmen that put a human face on the tragedy of Lebanon's fall from greatness, Majdalani's account is incisive and fearless in apportioning the blame to the inept "oligarchy in power." But it is the moment of 6:07 p.m. on August 4, 2020, that Majdalani becomes a literal part of the collapse he chronicles: 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate in the port of Beirut explodes and he feels the floor "come and go beneath me like an old swing," likening the aftermath to "a city that had been bombed for hours and hours." Majdalani's elegant prose elevates this compelling, ultimately devastating account of an unthinkable tragedy. --Peggy Kurkowski, book reviewer and copywriter in Denver