4 Août 2020. Le port de Beyrouth vient d’exploser. Le narrateur, abasourdi, découvre sa ville dévastée. Alors que la population tente de s’organiser, ses pensées s’entrechoquent : malgré la version officielle d’un accident, il est convaincu d’avoir entendu des avions survoler son quartier, ces grosses bestioles qui lui tordent les entrailles. Pour lui, le monde entier complote contre le Liban. Car d’autres bestioles, plus anciennes, vrombissent aussi dans sa tête : bribes éparses de la douceur de sa femme, cauchemars d’attentats, et flashs d’un passé fratricide qui lui colle à la peau. Un texte à l’ironie mordante et au rythme haletant, qui nous transmet le vertige de la folie lié à l’expérience de la violence, et pose la question d’une humanité si difficile à conserver.

August 4, 2020. The port of Beirut has just exploded. The narrator, stunned, discovers his devastated city. As the population tries to organize, his thoughts clash: despite the official version of an accident, he is convinced he heard planes flying over his neighborhood, those big beasties that twist his entrails. For him, the whole world is conspiring against Lebanon. Because other, older beasties also roar in his head: scattered fragments of his wife's sweetness, nightmares of attacks, and flashes of a fratricidal past that cling to him. A text with biting irony and a breathless rhythm, which conveys the vertigo of madness linked to the experience of violence, and raises the question of a humanity so difficult to maintain.