The embodied city: Reconstructing Beirut in Zeina Abirached’s A Game for Swallows

What is it about?

In her memoir, A Game for Swallows, Zeina Abirached uses the format of comics to show her memories of Beirut during the civil war. She draws the city in images that call to mind the human body to illustrate how the war changed the landscape and the ways people used the city, and reconstructs it through her memories as well as those of her neighbors. This helps readers see that a city can be thought of as having an identity that comes from its inhabitants - the ways they move through it and the ways they remember it together. When we see a city damaged by war, we should understand how this affects the people living there and those who had to leave it.

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Photo by Rodion Kutsaiev on Unsplash

Photo by Rodion Kutsaiev on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Reading news stories about cities damaged by conflict, especially those far from our experience, can feel abstract. In order to more fully understand how war affects people and the places with which they identify, we can also read first person accounts, and this memoir's use of comics is especially effective in communicating the importance of cities to the identities of its inhabitants.