Today, four months since the explosion in Lebanon, I ask you what is tragedy. Is tragedy waking up to find your city demolished to the ground, with hundreds of dead, many missing, some friends, some neighbors, some family? The city you have cried in, danced in, kissed in, loved in…

A Lebanese tradition When the war with Israel broke in 2006, I recall watching on TV big ships transporting Lebanese folks, away from the Mediterranean who look like me, some of them my age, some my classmates, away from death and into hope and life. I wondered what is wrong…

Raja is the friend that is the last to leave the party. The one who convinces you to stay out till sunrise with her. You feel so special, and so needed that you end up staying and it makes of memorable stories you continue laughing about and reminiscing about for…

Every Lebanese knows about the phone call. And it goes two ways. — The first, looks like this. You are sitting at home with your best friend and his cousin, your aunt is over too, she is looking for a dress to borrow from your mother’s closet. You hear a loud noise, the glass around you shatters. You are in shock. You look…

After years of telling her friends she wants to leave him, and silently going back to him, Lebanon suddenly woke up one day, without telling anyone and asked her boyfriend of almost 30 years to fuck off. …

The Lebanese Civil War ended when I was a kid, but the pain lasted far longer — I can still vividly recall the look on my high school history teacher’s face when I raised my hand and asked why the Lebanese history books stopped at 1975. …