On the Coffee Table: Zeina Abariched

Title: I Remember Beirut
Writer and Artist: Zeina Abirached

via Goodreads

Abirached was born in war-torn Lebanon in 1981.  I Remember Beirut is her graphic novel childhood memoir, originally published in French in 2008.  The English translation came out in 2014.  We are spared the more brutal details of the Lebanese Civil War.  Instead, we see the daily life of a family living in the shadows of that conflict.  She shares such memories as her mother's bullet-riddled car and her neighborhood, considered so sketchy that school buses wouldn't go there. 

Both the art and the narrative themes are highly reminiscent of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis.  Unfortunately, Abirached does not have quite the same knack for storytelling.  The book is short: 95 pages.  That's not such a sin in itself but I didn't feel I had much time to fall in love with either the characters or the setting.  Also, too many of her sentences begin with "I remember..."  While there is poetic potential in such repetition, the rest of the text does not deliver on such lyrical promise.  I am grateful for the opportunity to learn more about Lebanon, particularly during such a volatile time period.  But I would have preferred something more substantive.

In short, it's a good book.  But Satrapi's work is better.