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Can we still see the repeated caress of passing time in the disjointed slabs of the sidewalks? Can we still smell the stubborn scents of orange blossoms among the port’s odors? Can we still grasp the benevolent smile and gesture of the truck driver within the chaotic traffic? Can we still find hope and energy in the lofty brow of our mountains? Can we still read the promise of loves to come in the round of clouds?
Are the Lebanese condemned to abandon themselves to the blonde curls of Arabia’s dunes? To lose themselves in the anonymity of Western crowds? To devote themselves to foreign cults?
BEMO and its partners: the Ministry of Education, the French Institute, Librairie Antoine, the Assabil Association and the Beirut Center of Photography, launched the second edition of the short story competition on the theme “Dreaming Lebanon” (Rêver le Liban).
This initiative is intended to be a nationwide writing workshop with the aim of freeing us from our various traumas.
This competition is open to high school and university students.
In Arabic, French or English, the submitted short stories must be accompanied by a photo and deal with the hidden gardens of Beirut. The announcement of the results will take place on April 13 at ESA to symbolically leave behind the nightmare that began 49 years ago.
The winning stories will receive a prize and will be published by Librairie Antoine.
One of them may, perhaps, be the incipit of a great literary career.
What Lebanon do we want?
A Lebanon of nightmares from which we wish to awaken as soon as possible?
An unreal Lebanon for which we only have nostalgia?
But rather an ideal Lebanon to which we will all contribute, in all our diversities, in the four corners of the country and on all continents.
It is to this exercise that we invited our youth to conceive and make real an excellent Lebanon, more generous, more beautiful and better.
For more informations:
www.reverleliban.com
