RSVP for this in person event below.

Join us for the book launch of My Port of Beirut (Pluto Press, 2023) by Lamia Ziadé, followed by a conversation with the author.

On the evening of August 4, 2020, Hangar 12 of the Port of Beirut exploded, and then exploded again. A shockwave moving faster than the speed of sound tore through Beirut, leaving nearly 200 people dead, 6,000 injured and 300,000 homeless. The blast had been caused by the storing of thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate alongside a stash of fireworks – a deadly arrangement about which the government had known, but done nothing.

For six months straight, French-Lebanese author and artist Lamia Ziadé wrote, illustrated and recorded every new piece of information, every photograph of the wreckage or the wounded that made its way around WhatsApp groups, Instagram and Twitter. In My Port of Beirut, Ziadé weaves together the play-by-play of the tragedy with her own personal stories, as well as the historical and political background that made such a catastrophe possible and, perhaps, inevitable.