Zailaa Rima makes her Englishlanguage debut with this robust mix of memoir history and magical realism which gathers her graphic novel trilogy into one volume Zailaa Rima nimbly handles the shifts in time with evocative gestural drawings that capture how sociopolitical upheavals reverberate across generations Throughout her restless blend of the personal and the political thrums with urgency Readers will have a tough time putting this one downPublishers Weekly

The opening lines of white text on black give way to rich expressive patches of ink carved up with stark white forms and fine lines building a city through its architectural geometry and imperfections and through the body language of a street vendor negotiating his cart against heavy traffic and a young refugee shot dead in the street The panels click along like a film reel narrated by a Hakawati a storyteller who speaks through the entire cast cab driver singer author surrogate mother and daughter in search of the sea Greek chorus of trash shovelers questioning the nature of the narrative in which they find themselves The three volumes grow progressively personal and the art becomes more representational stiffening into detailed figures cut out against their backgrounds like a black box stage play delivering elegiac dialogue that dissects existence All three volumes favor atmosphere over narrative as they wryly but earnestly ponder the refugees wandering out of time a mothers longago involvement in a movement the machinery of political change and historical amnesia Opaque but arrestingKirkus Review

Decades in the making graphic novelist and filmmaker Barrack Zailaa Rimas Beirut trilogyequal parts love letter and mournful lamentation for a lost crisisridden homelanddebuts in English thoughtfully translated by Carla Calarg and Alexandra GueydanTurek Although Beirut might seem slim Zailaa Rimas art significantly and impressively expands her narratives The electrifying mix of doublepage spreads irregularly handdrawn and borderless panels jarring allblack backgrounds and intricate details alternating with simple outlines reflects the unsettled chaos that is quotidian for generations of Beiruts residents Rima acts as privileged cipher adroitly navigating the fragmentationpersonal communal nationalof being both insider and outsiderTerry Hong Shelf Awareness

It is impossible to do justice to Zailaa Rimas Beirut The collection is a visual and philosophical journey both forwards and backwards in time that one must make themselves After which as Zailaa Rima invites one will be wellserved to critique this current inadequate world and strive towards a better one Yalla a better world awaitsSalma Hussain the temz review

Full of rewarding fissures and detours embracing every complication and every contradiction that comes up A brilliant political portrait of a cityMichael DeForge author of Birds of Maine