Bullet, Paper, Rock

A story of survival, and a meditation on desire and loss, language and violence

In Abbas El-Zein's new memoir, conflicts abound – either tragic or amusing, sometimes both – between teachers and students, left- and right-wing factions, civilians and militiamen and, not least, French and Arabic, two languages vying for primacy in the post-colonial worlds of Beirut and the Levant, with English coming ...