In the Months After a Devastating Blast, Beirut’s Art Scene Searches for New Life

The first book I pulled out of my library in the aftermath of the devastating Beirut Port explosion in August was Of Cities & Women (Letters to Fawwaz), a collection of correspondence written by the artist, poet, writer Etel Adnan between 1990 and 1992. She wrote the letters from different cities and addressed them, as the title suggests, to her friend, Lebanese historian Fawwaz Traboulsi. Adnan’s words surged back to mind more and more during the mournful, exhausting, and angry month