Water on Fire: A Memoir of War

(Paperback)

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In this evocative, insightful memoir, a leading voice in Middle Eastern Studies revisits his childhood in war-torn Lebanon and his family's fascinating history, coming to terms with trauma and sexuality. Water on Fire tells a story of immigration that starts in a Beirut devastated by the Lebanese Civil War (1975-90), continues with experiences of displacement in Europe and Africa, moves to northeastern American towns battered by lake-effect snow and economic woes, and ends in New York City on 9/11. A story of loss, but also of evolution, it models a kind of resilience inflected with humor, daring, and irreverence. Alternating between his perspective as a child and as an adult, Tarek El-Ariss explores how we live with trauma, poignantly illustrating the profound impact of war on our perception of the world, our fears and desires. His memoir is at once historical and universal, intellectual and introspective, the outcome of a long and painful process of excavation that reveals internal turmoil and the predicament of conflict and separation. A contemporary "interpretation of dreams" dealing with monsters, invisible creatures, skin outbreaks, and the sea, it is a book about objects and elements, like water and fire, and about how encountering these elements triggers associations, connecting present and past, time and space.

Reviews

I can see this little boy carrying water containers home, or swimming at the beautiful beach in Beirut. Playing in shorts or carrying his bag on the way to school. As I read his story, I cant help but wish for him to escape the bombs. Not only because I know this war, and this city, but also because I deeply understand how alone he feels under an abandoned sky. As an adult, Tarek El-Ariss will weave from his trauma, from this water and this fire, the words that tie in the solitude of a stranger in awe of reason with the joy of knowledge and discovery. Hoda Barakat, author of Voices of the Lost

Author Bio

Tarek El-Ariss is the James Wright Professor at Dartmouth College and was a Guggenheim Fellow (2021-22). Trained in philosophy, comparative literature, and visual and cultural studies, he works across disciplines and languages to examine notions of the subject, community, and modernity in Arabic culture, literature, and art. He is the author of Trials of Arab Modernity- Literary Affects and the New Political and Leaks, Hacks, and Scandals- Arab Culture in the Digital Age, and editor of the MLA anthology The Arab Renaissance- A Bilingual Anthology of the Nahda.