Lebanon Days: Memories of an ancient land through economic meltdown, a revolution of hope and surviving the 2020 Beirut explosion

'An astonishing piece of writing.'Helen Garner on Ell's 'Faades of Lebanon', winner of the 2021 Calibre Essay Prize. From 2018 to 2021, writer and researcher Theodore Ell accompanied his wife on her diplomatic posting to Lebanon and unexpectedly found himself a witness to a country on the brink of collapse. In 2019, facing economic meltdown, the people of Lebanon rose up, united in a revolution of hope. With the country on the precipice of war, Covid-19 then swept in and the eerie quiet of lockdowns descended-a silence tragically shattered in August 2020, when Ell narrowly survived the largest ever non-nuclear peacetime explosion, which destroyed half of Beirut. Everywhere from calm cedar forests to crowded Beirut bars, Ell listened to stories of the Lebanese people and tried to make sense of the maze of ideas, desires and illusions that create the Lebanon of their imagination, a place in sharp contrast to reality. In prose as lucid as it is emotionally rich, and based on reportage that won Ell the 2021 Calibre Prize, Lebanon Days welcomes those who wish to understand more than news footage can convey. This is the story of a nation largely ignored by the rest of the world, a complex country driven over the edge but still seeking faith in itself, seen through the eyes of an outsider drawn into its intimate struggle.