A Tunisian's journey in Beirut gifts the Arab literary world an extraordinary neoclassical novel

This can be attributed, in part, to Labib's proximity to classical Arabic heritage and French culture, as well as his background in the sociology of culture and literature.

His PhD study in Paris ("The Sociology of Arabic Love Poetry: The Platonic Love Poetry as a Model") showcases his passion for language and cultural exploration. It was published in French in 1972, but was translated into Arabic several times since, the last of which was by the author himself.

Now, with his first entry into novel writing, he enriches the Arabic literary scene with his fusion of the classic and the modern, attempting to capture the essence of a city that has been both lost and found.

The missing images of Beirut

The novel centres on a narrator, who keeps a diary where he jots down his experiences in Beirut, spanning a period of 11 years.

He talks about his life as an intellectual, researcher and director of an Arab translation organisation. He interacts with the city, its culture, and its people, and analyses himself in its mirrors; he pays special attention to places like Ras Beirut and Al-Hamra Street, and the cultural centres of Beirut, where he spends most of his days, making friends and, eventually, falling in love.

When he arrived in the city in 2000, he was armed with photos of Beirut that showcased "sidewalks and elegance that reproduced the Paris of the crazy years". (That is, the 1960s and 1970s.) He was struck by similar images that were hung in his hotel room. Many of these snapshots were lost during Lebanon's civil wars, between 1975 and 1990.

These portrayals intertwine with older depictions from Lebanese literary traditions, which are popular in the Arab world. They include writings by travellers, foreigners' admiration for Lebanon's nature, and the works of poets like Khalil Gibran and Mikhael Naimy. (These literary gems were often overlooked during wars, except in school curricula.)

Additionally, there's a sense of longing for Lebanon among its diaspora and communities abroad. This dates back to the time between the two World Wars and the period that followed (1950s-1960s) and is evident in Lebanese literature and songs that pre-date the civil war.

Above all, the voice of the country's beloved songstress Fayrouz, perhaps, endured the longest, through wars and beyond.

Read more: Centennial of Assi al-Rahbani shines light on his cherished musical legacy

The narrator notes that Beirut is poetic in itself, due to the amount of poets who "flirt" with it. They have given it a feminine identity – even though Lebanon, in its original form, is masculine. This connection between the wordsmith and the city runs the gamut of emotions, he says: passion for it, fear and reproach over it, and anger towards it.

Arab intellectuals and writers have had a complex relationship with Beirut and Lebanon since the early 20th century, peaking between 1950 and 1975. However, perceptions changed during the civil wars when Beirut took on the role of a "revolutionary Arab Hanoi" (referring to the Vietnamese capital) after it embraced the Palestinian revolution following the Arab defeat in June 1967.

Some of the phrases our narrator uses to describe Beirut, as drawn from various poems and songs, include "the city of beginnings", "fornication, purity, debauchery", "mulberry leaf", "engineer of destruction" and "mistress of the world".

The narrator remarks, "The beauty of the images lies in their intent to seduce [us] with what's gone." This brings to mind a quote from Nizar Qabbani's "Coffee Cup Reader" sung by Abdel Halim Hafez: "Love is what is written upon you... my son."

The key to unlocking Beirut

And so, the narrator continues to explore and record his Beirut diaries, all the while evoking his own cultural and intellectual interpretations, writing: "There is no entrance to a city without fantasies."

On his first night in Beirut, he meets a European man in a hotel bar who is in love with, and addicted to, the city.

"I have been its prisoner for a quarter of a century," the European states. But soon, it emerges that the man was once held hostage by Khomeini's militias during their early, clandestine establishment in the city and its southern suburbs at the time of the Israeli army's invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 1982.

The narrator also recalls attending a symposium in the fall of 2011, towards the end of his journey, titled "Where are the Arabs going?" Of it, he writes: "I did not expect that I was going to hear the longest unfinished sentence I had ever heard." Before the symposium, while sitting in a café, he overhears "four or five men (...) gathered around a table (...) pebbles hitting the glass."

Continuing with babbling conversations in Beirut's intellectual cafés and cultural forums, the narrator sarcastically describes one venue where "nothing moves other than the pendulum of a wall clock." You could imagine it to host anything, he suggests – a wedding, a nightclub, an orphanage, a slaughterhouse, or even a drug hideout. "Ugliness wanted to be unbearable beauty."

In Al-Hamra Street, more sessions and meetings are held in cafés like Younis Café, what was once Horse Show and is now Costa, Lina's, Modca, Wimpy, and City Café.

The narrator briefly encounters a woman with an "ornate ivory bracelet" on her wrist, who takes him on a city tour. She describes herself as: "A stereotypical Lebanese (woman). I was born in Lebanon and spent my childhood in West Africa. I pursued my higher education in Paris; my struggle is patriotic; my marriage is ideological (...) I emigrate to return, and I return to emigrate. I love Fayrouz's voice and the music of (her son) Ziad. I like the touch of madness in everything."

The narrator continues to stroll through the city while comparing its present to its past. He likens it to the experience of holding a missing person's poster and seeking any trace of them in your surroundings. To him, Beirut is more of an idea than a city.

He moves from an old bookshop to the shop of a watchmaker who hates watches. From the loneliness of rooms to the boredom of coffee shops. From an apartment on Bliss Street to his workplace.

It seems as if he's walked more here than any street he's walked in his life. (This is reminiscent of something Syrian poet Muhammad al-Maghout once wrote, while homeless in Beirut in the 1960s: "From Bliss Street to Joan d'Arc Street, and from Joan d'Arc to Bliss, I walked thousands of kilometres.")

Read more: The Arabic prose poem owes a lot to Syrian poet al-Maghout

By the first month, he feels as though he's befriended most of the intellectuals the city has to offer.

A sunflower blooms

But in 2004, his fate changed.

A woman walks through the door of Lina's café. The sight of her stops the coffee cup in his hand. He begins to call her his "sunflower".

Later, he meets her by chance at Antoine Library, where she's searching for "references for a study on women's rights." Their ensuing love story unfolds on the rooftop café of the Albergo Hotel in the Tabaris district.

The narrative – and the city – expands with their romance, even as the world continues to spin around them. The July 2006 war happens, including political assassinations that occurred both before and after. Meetings between the narrator and the woman become difficult.

Still, he is taken by her; she embodied, he writes, what he had envisioned a Lebanese woman to be; "one whose beauty adorns her that as she walks, her body grows lighter, curving around itself (...) ascending so it seems her movements are illusory, never repeating."

But outside, instability continues to plague Beirut, leading up to the revolution of 17 October 2019. The great collapse begins. After that, the explosion of Beirut's port.

Read more: The catastrophic port blast that shattered Lebanese hearts and hope

The narrator touches on his own experience in Tunisia and its 2011 revolution.

As for the romance, it's tinged with a hint of suspicion; the woman feels somewhat betrayed, stating: "It is hard for a lover to become similar after being unique." The narrator also begins to question why he's in Beirut.

Stretch of the imagination

One part of the novel stands out for its more imaginative, fictional undertones. The narrator recalls his childhood in Tunisia. He vividly describes waiting for the bus at the age of six; the dust kicked up by its wheels had become its own kind of timing.

As he waits to be taken to a distant school, his father reminds him of the importance of education.

Suddenly, "a mule appeared carrying a man dressed in white, who is the sheikh of the Earth." Upon learning that the child's father is sending his son to school, he says: "Don't you see that everyone who left this land in search of knowledge, ended up wandering far from it, writing protective charms, or teaching the Qur'an like you in the shade of a wall? (...) Leave the boy among his family and delay his life away until he's older."

Nevertheless, the boy gets on the bus and goes to school. Then to Paris, and then to Beirut. There, he transforms his diaries into a novel called "Waiting for the Predicate of 'Inna'" – perhaps an example of those "protective charms" belonging to knowledge-seekers who are far from home.

From streets to cafés, cafés to streets, the narrator takes us on a journey of past and present, complicated by reality and perception and matters of the heart. The result is an enchanting novel that breaks away from the mould of Arabic writing styles of the past decade.

Labib, upon publishing the book, visited Beirut to read a few excerpts, bringing alive his narrator's world.

Aptly, he did it in one of the city's cafés.