The beautiful time

A new journey by Emily Nasrallah takes us back to 1950s Lebanon. With her warm and affectionate style, and her rich, yet unostentatious, text, dense and unpretentious, she takes us on a journey into her own world, without us feeling like a stranger. The writer, who was still in the skin of a journalist, lavishes us with her experience in the "good old days," reminding us of names we've forgotten and introducing us to others we don't know, through the faces she met and interviewed. They are mostly women. Women activists, each in her own way, in the public or private sphere, openly or silently: from Edwic Jureidini Chiboub to Queen Fatima al-Senussi, the pioneering lady Ibtihaj Kaddoura, and the first Lebanese opera singer Samia al-Hajj, to the clairvoyant Fatima, and Martha, the octogenarian student at the American University. Nasrallah's women were not just ink. They also took form through the artist Jean Machaalani, who accompanied the passionate journalist and decorated her articles in the pages of Assayad magazine over the years. A spiritually and visually rich journey, in which the personal intersects with the general, as journalistic and literary narratives transcend the boundaries of the interview into the spaciousness of the homeland and society. In a new journey, Emily Nasrallah takes us to Lebanon in the 1950s. With her warm and affectionate style, and her rich and substantial prose without exaggeration, she wanders with us in her own world, and we don't feel estranged. The author, who was still in the skin of a journalist, generously shares her experience in "the beautiful era" as we call the 50s/60s in the Arab World, reminding us of names we had forgotten and introducing us to others we didn't know, through faces she met and interviewed. Most of them are women, fighting each in her own way, in the public or private sphere, outspokenly or in silence: from Edwige Ghiradini Sheboub to Queen Fatima AlSenussi, from the leader Ibtihaj Qaddoura to the first Lebanese opera singer Samia AlHajj, and even Fatima the fortuneteller, and Martha, the octogenarian student at the American University of Beirut. Nasrallah's women were not just ink on paper. They also took shape in the hands of the artist Jean Michelani, who accompanied the enthusiastic journalist and adorned her articles on the pages of the local Lebanese magazine Al Sayyad for years. It is a spiritually and visually rich journey, where the personal intersects with the public, transcending the boundaries of journalistic and literary narrative to the realm of homeland and society.