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336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
Cultures that may seem as durable as stone can break like glass, leaving all the things that held them together unattended. I believe that the various craftsmen, artists, silversmiths & even cooks are peacemakers who instill grace & lull the world to calm. The tiles at my feet were the remnants of a lost Marjayoun & were artifacts of an ideal, meant to remind & to inspire, vestiges of an irretrievable Levant, a world that calls to mind an older, more tolerant, more indulgent Middle East.At one time, during the Ottoman Empire, prior to WWI and before foreign powers arbitrarily demarcated the boundaries of 5 states of uncertain identity--Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria & Transjordan, it seems that this area was "an amalgamation of diversities, where many mingled, a realm of intersection, a crossroads of language, culture, religions & traditions."
almost tribal divisions, with each group now demarcated by colors, banners, portraits of conflicts, all of them abbreviations of reason, with deluded notions of supremacy, with church & nation falling impossibly together.