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Wikipedia article'Beirut Nightmares' (1976) is a novel written by Syrian author Ghada al-Samman. It was translated to several languages including Russian (1987) and Bolonian (1984). The novel covers cultural, societal, political, religious aspects, and psychological aspects, in addition to fantasy and magical realism through the hallucinations she had, involving symbolism as a way to explain these aspects. Pauline Vinson explains that Sammans usage of symbolism is not only tied up to socio-political and historical conditions, but is also let into the world of fantasy and the surreal, a style close to magic realism. == Characters * The narrator (the protagonist)
Main Idea
The novel is based upon the life of a woman (the narrator) during the Lebanese Civil War trapped in her flat for two weeks due to street battles and snipper fire, writing a series of vignettes formed into diaries. The diaries were split into different sections named "Nightmare" starting from "Nightmare 1" until "Nightmare 197".
Quotes ==
"I gift this novel to the printers, who are currently organising the letters despite the bombings, and they know that the book will not have their name written inside. "To the anonymous fighters, the heroes, who live and die in silence, creating history. To the ones writing these books which wouldn't have their signatures inside; to them I gift these lines, to the ones who lighted their waxy fingers for the dawn to rise" "After eight months of civil war, you become conscious of how the frightful chaos around you has taken possession of your inner being, and you feel the need to reorder the world inside you, including your values and your ways of understanding things. Everything looks different in the light of the surprises that have come your way, and the discoveries which, whether theyve come as painful blows or sources of intense joy, have in either case left you both baffled and astounded" ReferencesCategory:1976 novels Category:First-person narrative novels | |
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