Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Water on Fire: A Memoir of War

Water on Fire: A Memoir of War

El-Ariss, Tarek

Paperback

Biographies GeneralGeneral Middle Eastern History

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 1635424461
ISBN13: 9781635424461
Publisher: Other Press (NY)
Published: Apr 23 2024
Pages: 272
Weight: 0.60
Height: 0.80 Width: 5.00 Depth: 7.60
Language: English
In this evocative, insightful memoir, a leading voice in Middle Eastern Studies revisits his childhood in war-torn Lebanon and his family's fascinating history, coming to terms with trauma and desire.

Water on Fire tells a story of immigration that starts in a Beirut devastated by the Lebanese Civil War (1975-90), continues with experiences of displacement in Europe and Africa, moves to northeastern American towns battered by lake-effect snow and economic woes, and ends in New York City on 9/11. A story of loss, but also of evolution, it models a kind of resilience inflected with humor, daring, and irreverence.

Alternating between his perspective as a child and as an adult, Tarek El-Ariss explores how we live with trauma, poignantly illustrating the profound impact of war on our perception of the world, our fears and longings. His memoir is at once historical and universal, intellectual and introspective, the outcome of a long and painful process of excavation that reveals internal turmoil and the predicament of conflict and separation. A contemporary interpretation of dreams dealing with monsters, invisible creatures, skin outbreaks, and the sea, it is a book about objects and elements, like water and fire, and about how encountering these elements triggers associations, connecting present and past, time and space.

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