Tarek El-Ariss in conversation with Peter Maravelis, celebrating the publication of "Water on Fire: A Memoir of War" by Tarek El-Ariss, published by Other Press.

Purchase here: https://citylights.com/middle-east/water-on-fire-memoir-of-war/

"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 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 longings. 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.

Tarek El-Ariss is the James Wright Professor and Chair of Middle Eastern Studies at Dartmouth College and was a Guggenheim Fellow (2021–22). Trained in philosophy, comparative literature, and visual and cultural studies at the American University of Beirut, the University of Rochester, and Cornell University, 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."

Originally broadcast via Zoom on Friday, May 17, 2024. Special thanks to Judith Gurewich. Made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation. citylights.com/foundation/