Beirut Through the Memoirs of Lebanese and Arab
Publishers

Beyrouth dans les mémoires d'éditeurs libanais et arabes

Beirut en las memorias de los editores libaneses y árabes

Beirut in den Erinnerungen libanesischer und arabischer Verleger

Franck Mermier

Translator: Delaina Haslam

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OpenEdition
Journals

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URL: https://journals.openedition.org/bssg/6064

DOI: 10.4000/13ky7

ISSN: 2490-9424

This article is a translation of:

Beyrouth dans les mémoires d'éditeurs libanais et arabes - URL : https://journals.openedition.org/
bssg/5912 [fr]

Publisher

Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre

Electronic reference

Franck Mermier, "Beirut Through the Memoirs of Lebanese and Arab Publishers", *Biens Symboliques / Symbolic Goods* [Online], 15 | 2024, Online since 15 December 2024, connection on 28 March 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/bssg/6064; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/13ky7

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# Beirut Through the Memoirs of Lebanese and Arab Publishers

*Beyrouth dans les mémoires d'éditeurs libanais et arabes*

*Beirut en las memorias de los editores libaneses y árabes*

*Beirut in den Erinnerungen libanesischer und arabischer Verleger*

Franck Mermier

Translation : Delaina Haslam

<footnote n="1">1 Beirut's cultural role in its regional environment is the subject of competing representations within Lebanese and Arab intellectual circles. Some focus on the political and community divisions in the city, on an exclusive definition of a Beirut identity, and on constraints on freedom of expression. Others adopt a kind of “rhetorical longing” (Herzfeld 2016 [1997]: 176) for a period of cultural vitality-which occurred before the beginning of the Lebanese War (1975–1990) (Mermier 2021: 299-308). The status that Beirut shares with Cairo of book capital of the Arab world is thus showcased to support the idea of Lebanese singularity resulting from the combination of the commercial and the technical plus economic and cultural liberalism. During the 1960s and 1970s, Lebanese publishing took off in response to increased demand in the Arabic publishing industry, particularly in academic publishing, and benefited from the nationalization of the industry in most Arab countries (Stephan-Hashem 1988). Beirut attracted many Arab intellectuals and cultural entrepreneurs who created journals and publishing houses, taking advantage of reduced censorship, economic laissez-faire, but also—for some—financial support from various Arab political groups, particularly Palestinian organizations. The Lebanese capital had become the “public space of the Arab world” and an “ideological and literary laboratory” thanks to the diversity and vitality of a publishing environment that fuelled the intellectual and ideological debates taking place in an Arab space riven by political strife (Mermier 2005: 57–67).</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2 The war, which began in 1975, prompted journalists, publishers, and intellectuals to leave for Europe. Arab media organizations were established, first in Paris and then in</footnote>
London, where several Lebanese publishers also settled. In 1990, the end of the war ushered in a new era in the Arab and Lebanese book world, with the return of some publishing houses to Beirut and the development of private publishing in other Arab countries. A decade later, the emergence of the Gulf states as a cultural centre of gravity was reinforced by the wars and political tensions that followed the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 and by the banking crisis that affected Lebanon in 2019 and had disastrous consequences for the publishing industry, which were accentuated by the explosion at the port of Beirut on 4 August 2020. This new position of the Gulf states in the Arab publishing industry has been reflected in the growing prominence of book fairs, particularly those of Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and Riyadh, in the launching of translation projects, and in the creation of Arab literary prizes, which are in some cases highly lucrative (Mermier 2016: 199–214).

With the exception of some academic works (Gonzalez-Quijano 1998; Majdalani & Mermier 2016, Mermier 2005), knowledge of Arabic publishing remains piecemeal. It is fed every now and then by surveys of the Arab region (Rachād & ‘Azab 2021) and of certain countries such as Morocco (King Abdul-Aziz al Saud Foundation 2023), as well as by essays by professionals in the sector on the challenges facing Arabic books,¹ or by general works intended to make a mark on the world of publishing.² However, new sources appeared in the 2000s. These comprise publishers’ memoirs that form an original and valuable corpus whose exploitation offers us a better understanding of the different facets of these book professionals in the Arab region and, regarding the case in hand, of the evolution of Beirut’s cultural centralities and the ways in which these publishers consider the role of Beirut in their professional and cultural socialization. The question of spaces of sociability linked to the intellectual and artistic worlds is also a particularly important theme in a city plagued by many internal and regional wars during the twentieth century that resulted in urban destruction and lasting territorial divisions.

In fact, bearing in mind the small number of Arab publishers who have engaged in the autobiographical genre in order to trace their professional, intellectual, and political trajectories, the four works gathered in this corpus are, to our knowledge, the only ones of this type to have been written so far. The accounts by Lebanese publishers Suhayl Idris (1925–2008) and Nasser Jarrouss (1947–), Syrian-Lebanese publisher Riad al-Rayyes (1937-2020), and Palestinian-Jordanian publisher Fathi al-Biss correspond to the autobiographical genre according to the definition given by Philippe Lejeune (1989 [1975]: 14): “Retrospective prose narrative written by a real person concerning his own existence, where the focus is his individual life, in particular the story of his personality.” This corpus³ is significant precisely because it shows the fluctuating place of the publishing profession in these different narratives and its degree of prestige compared with other intellectual and political activities. The differentiated shifts in terms of content and style of these memoirs, the context in which they are written, and the professional, political, and cultural image that these publishers wish to present extend the spectrum of the autobiographical genre, which has been particularly popular in the countries of the Levant since the nineteenth century (al-Charif & Ezzerelli 2009) and which has increased thereafter.

However, these autobiographies of publishers do not constitute a sub-genre such as that formed by the memoirs of the “shadow men” as François Dosse (2014) describes French publishers, because with the exception of a single author, Nasser Jarouss, who
highlights only his activity as a publisher, their writings invoke other aspects of their professional and cultural commitment. These memoirs confirm the heterogeneous character of publisher figures and contrasts them with equivalents in different publishing contexts and in the literary, media, cultural, and political worlds. Thus, an initial exploratory survey of this corpus appeared an appropriate way to understand how these affiliations are made subjective through writing and how they are projected onto a Beiruti context.

These stories lend themselves to a comparative study since their authors are linked by their professional affiliation to the publishing world, but also because their cultural socialization took place in the intellectual and political circles of Beirut. Beyond their differences, the publishers concerned have all been major players in Arabic publishing owing to the dissemination of their production throughout the Arab world or their role in the organization of the profession, and often for both of these reasons.

The evolution of Beirut's cultural role in its Arab environment and its spaces of cultural sociability and consumption between the 1950s and the 2000s are the themes that guided the selection of excerpts from these publishers' trajectories. The portraits of the city reproduced here are certainly fragmentary and subjective representations related to the experiences of their authors, or at least to what the latter manage to reconstruct with the inevitable effect of passing time. Moreover, what is highlighted in their lives is of course the construction of a “narrative identity” thus defined by Paul Ricoeur (1990 [1985]: 246):

> Unlike the abstract identity of the Same, this narrative identity—which constitutes ipseity—can include change, mutability within the cohesion of one lifetime. The subject then appears both as a reader and the writer of his own life, as Proust would have it... the story of a life continues to be refigured by all the... stories a subject tells about himself or herself. This refiguration makes this life into a cloth woven of stories told.

Autobiography is also a testimony and, in this sense, a narrative of experience based on the foregrounding of a singularity whose elaboration, through the testimonial narrative, must be contextualized as proposed by Christian Jouhaud, Dinah Ribard, and Nicolas Schapira (2009: 17):

> We must therefore look at what actors of the past have done with their testimony, whether they have defended a personal or collective cause, transmitted an experience, developed their author figure, or all the above. My approach then consists in proposing ways of contextualizing the writings that I analyse within the set of actions that gave them meaning. In this way, these writings become a precious testimony to the experience of past individuals, understood in terms of the manipulation they carried out in order to act on the world.

Do these publishers present themselves in their identity as publishers, that is to say according to Pierre Bourdieu's definition of having "a dual character, one that can reconcile art and money, love of literature and the pursuit of profit" (2008 [1999]: 138)? How do they present their family and educational life paths and the political and urban contexts in which they evolve? Which are their social and ideological affiliations?

For the four authors considered, their relationship to Beirut and the publishing world, as expressed in their memoirs, will serve as a common thread to highlight the correlations that are established between narrative projections of images of the city based on the relation between practices and representations linked to urban spaces, and the narration of biographical, professional, and intellectual trajectories.
# 1. The Shortened Memoirs of Suhayl Idris, Novelist and Founder of Dār al-Ādāb Publishing House

11 The first case I propose to study is that of the Lebanese writer and editor Suhayl Idris, who was born in Beirut in 1925⁴. The first volume of his memoirs, titled *Dhikrayāt al-adab wa-l-hubb* (Literary and Sentimental Memories), was published in 2002 by Dār al-Ādāb (Éditions des Lettres) which he founded in 1956 with the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani (1923–1998). Now one of the most prestigious literary publishing houses in the Arab world, under the leadership of Rana Idris, the daughter of its founder, it still possesses a real power to consecrate those writers, especially novelists, who have the privilege of seeing their work being include in its catalogue (Mermier 2005: 59–61). The publication of this autobiographical account met with some family sensitivities because of the revelations it contained about his father’s homosexuality, which prevented the publication of the second volume after the author’s death in 2008. This second part is devoted to the history of the *al-Ādāb* (Literature) journal and the help provided by his co-founder and friend, the Egyptian critic, translator, and publisher Anwar al-Ma’iddawi. The latter assured him of his support, in a letter dated 24 May 1952, pointing out that the Arab world lacked a serious literary journal (Idris 2002: 112, 117). Indeed, from its creation in 1953 until its demise in 2012⁵, *al-Ādāb*, which was part of the “commitment literature” and pan-Arabism currents, constituted a true cultural institution for the Arab world.

12 While the first part of the memoirs does not deal with Idris’s publishing career,⁶ it provides us with valuable information on his social background, his school and university education, his relations with Lebanese and Arab cultural circles, his relationship to the French language, and the respective place of his activities as a journalist, writer, and translator, not to mention tales of the romantic pursuits of his youth and descriptions of his family life. The account relates to a period in which the foundations of new cultural institutions created in the 1950s and 1960s were laid, such as the *al-Ādāb* and *Shi’r* (Poetry) journals⁷ and the Dār al-Ādāb publishing house, sometimes as a continuation of existing institutions (with particular attention paid to the transition from *al-Sayyād* to *al-Ādāb*). *Al-Ādāb* journal was founded in 1953 by Suhayl Idris with Munir Baalbaki (1918–1999) and Bahij Othman (1921–1985), who managed the Dār al-‘Ilm li al-malāyīn (Science for all) publishing house,⁸ founded in 1945, which Idris used to publish his first collection of short stories in 1947 at his own expense. In the early years, the journal was also based at the premises of this publishing house (Idris 2002: 182).
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1</figcaption></figure>

Cover of the memoirs of Suhayl Idris.

1. 1. The Story of a Literary Vocation

13 Suhayl Idris's story is devoted, at least in this first volume (which goes up to 1956), to the development of his writing career and also to his career as a critic. In a letter to the Egyptian critic Anwar al-Ma'iddawi, he expresses his hatred of journalism, which he was compelled to pursue to feed his family, and which prevented him from realizing his literary ambitions (ibid.: 81). However, he highlights the defence of his PhD thesis at the Sorbonne on 30 May 1952, supervised by the Arabist academic Régis Blachère and concerning foreign influences on the Arabic novel (ibid.: 113). He simultaneously recounts his early experiences of writing and love. With an anecdote concerning ill-fitting religious robes on his small body, he distances himself from the five years spent at the College of Sharia Law in Beirut between 1937 and 1941. The idea of creating a literary journal came to him following the refusal by al-Riwāya (the Novel) journal, edited by Ahmad Hassan al-Zayyat in Cairo, to publish his translation of Alain Fournier's *Le Grand Meaulnes*, a refusal he deemed to be censorship (ibid.: 46) on account of the puritanism of its editor rather than being on literary grounds. His previous publications in Lebanese journals such as al-Makshūf (Uncovered), al-Amālī (Hopes), and al-Jumhūr (The Public) would indeed appear to attest to his writing skills. He complains on the contrary of the publisher's sanctimoniousness, taking as an example a change made to the title of a review by Anwar al-Ma'iddawi of a poetry collection by the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani, published in al-Risāla (The Message), in which the original title, Tufūla Nahd (The Childhood of Nahd, the latter word which means breast is also a
feminine given name) became *Tufūla Nahr* (The Childhood of Nahr, which means river) (ibid.: 86–87).

## 1. 2. *al-Sayyād*: A Seminal Experience

14 The selected memories of Suhayl Idris also provide valuable insight into the role of the *al-Sayyād* magazine as a cultural and political forum in Beirut connected to its Arab environment. He was invited to come to work there in 1943 by its co-founder Saïd Freiha.¹⁰ The editorial offices were located in the Lazariyyé building in downtown Beirut, where most Lebanese publishers were concentrated until the destruction of the centre from 1975.¹¹ Idris also contributed to the Lebanese journal *al-Adīb* (The Well Read) (edited by Albert Adib [1908–1985]), and to Beirut newspapers *Bayrūt al-masā’* (Beirut Evening) and *Beirut*. He also refers to the Syrian newspaper *al-Sabāh* (The Morning) in Damascus and the Egyptian journal *al-Risāla*, which, according to him, exerted significant influence amongst Egyptians and Arabs between 1933 and 1953.

15 Suhayl Idris (2002: 63–64) linked the development of his political consciousness, in the context of the struggle for independence against the French Mandate, to his reading of the nationalist press, particularly the newspaper *Beirut*, created in 1936, which had the motto “*L’arabisme est au-dessus de tous*” (Arabism is above everyone). Idris published his first patriotic short story in *al-Sayyād* on 22 November 1945 with the title “In memory of a revolution.” In his autobiography, he also mentions politicians who came to see Saïd Freiha at the *al-Sayyād* offices, including Riad al-Solh, who became Prime Minister after independence, and the Druze Emir Majid Arslan, but also the many writers who collaborated with the editor, including Khalil Taqi al-Din, Tawfiq Youssef ‘Awwad, Abd al-Salam al-‘Ujayli, Chakib al-Jabiri, and others who later became contributors of *al-Ādāb*. On his return from Paris, after completing his PhD in literature, he worked only a few months at *al-Sayyād* because he was obliged to teach at the Lebanese University and the Beirut Arab University, to repay the debt he had contracted with the Ministry of Education and the Makassed Association (ibid.: 66), but he stresses the importance of his collaboration with the journal, which “led the way for him to literary journalism and made possible creation of *al-Ādāb* journal in 1953) (ibid.: 67).

## 1. 3. Cultural Ties with Egypt

16 Suhayl Idris evokes the relations between Beirut’s literary milieu and the Damascene press, and mentions the publication of some of his poems in *al-Sabāh*; but it is above all the cultural links with Egypt that he describes. He highlights his continuing contact with several prominent members of the Egyptian literary scene. He devotes a chapter of his book to his relationship with the Egyptian critic Anwar al-Ma’iddawi. Al-Ma’iddawi was most likely the first to respond to Idris’s first short story collection, *Ashwāq* (Desires), published in 1948, in a review in the Egyptian journal *al-‘Ālam al-‘arabī* (The Arab World), edited by Sayyid Qutb, then to his second collection, *Nīrān wa thulūj* (Fires and Snow), published in 1949.¹² It was also al-Ma’iddawi who, during his stay in Paris between 1949 and 1952, sent him references he needed for the preparation of his thesis.

17 Suhayl Idris perceives literary relations between Egypt and the Levant countries as unequal. In one of his letters to Anwar al-Ma’iddawi, he criticizes Egyptian writers for
ignoring both Lebanese and Syrian literary production, which he believes can
sometimes surpass Egyptian one (ibid.: 79-80). However, he acknowledges the role
played by Egyptian journals in the dissemination and recognition of his first texts, as
well as those of other Syrian and Lebanese writers.

18 In another letter addressed to Anwar al-Ma’iddawi, he refers to the great influence, both in Egypt and in the Arab world, of *al-Risāla*, the Egyptian magazine owned and edited by Ahmad Hasan al-Zayyat; then in a letter dated 31 July 1940, he tells him that his first short story has been published in it, and that his first novel *Sirāb* (Mirage) has been serialized in the weekly *Bayrūt al-masā’* (ibid.: 82-84). He also recounts literary controversies between Egyptian writers such as Anwar al-Ma’iddawi and Amin Youssef Ghurab via Lebanese magazines such as *al-Adīb* and Egyptian magazines such as *al-Risāla* (ibid.: 86).

19 This first volume focuses on Suhayl Idris's literary beginnings. He portrays his journalistic activity as his necessary bread and butter that encroaches on the time he should devote to literature. His pursuit of literary recognition first leads him to publication in journals and especially in Egyptian journals. Idris's experience as described in his (shortened) memoirs also shows that journals, notably *al-Sayyād*, constituted both places of cultural and professional socialization and an Arab space for communication, interaction, and emulation. He underlines his political commitment marked by the pan-Arabism of the period, of which Egypt had been the beacon since the seizure of power by the Free Officers Movement in 1952. He also became the voice of a group of Lebanese and Syrian writers based in Beirut, which revolved around the city centre.

## 2. Riad Najib al-Rayyes: The Last Outsider, or the Story of a Syrian-Lebanese Journalist and Publisher in London and Beirut

20 In the memoirs of Riad al-Rayyes, who was born in Damascus in 1937 and died in 2020, we find the figure of Saïd Freiha who was a close friend of al-Rayyes's father, the Syrian journalist Najib al-Rayyes (1898-1952), director of the daily newspaper *al-Qabas* which was published in Damascus from 1928 to 1958 (al-Rayyes 2004: 135). The book opens with Freiha, who led *al-Sayyād* magazine, arriving at Brummana High School¹³ to collect Riad al-Rayyes and his brother to take them to Damascus after the death of their father on 9 February 1952. The book is crammed with information about Arab press and publishing circles and ends with two meditations, one on the author's relations with Beirut, and the second on his multiple affiliations, both Lebanese and Syrian, as writer, journalist, and publisher.
<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2</figcaption></figure>

Cover of the memoirs of Riad al-Rayyes.

## 2. 1. Starting Out in Journalism in London and Beirut

21 It was during his stay in the United Kingdom, from 1956, that Riad al-Rayyes began his experience in the press within the Arab nationalist and anti-communist League of Arab Students. In England, he found alumni of the Brummana High School including the future Lebanese historian and sociologist Fawwaz Traboulsi,¹⁴ who submitted Arabic poems translated into English to the *Arab Review*, which he edited.

22 Al-Rayyes took part of the *Shi'r* magazine venture in Beirut by writing articles on cultural life in Great Britain at the request of Youssef al-Khal, its founder and editor. However, he claims that although his name appears in the magazine's imprint, he played only a marginal role (al-Rayyes 2004: 325). He also mentions the Palestinian poet Tawfiq Sayigh, whom he met at Cambridge in 1956. Sayigh founded *Hiwār* (Dialogue) magazine in Beirut in 1962 and Riad al-Rayyes worked there for a year as editorial assistant (ibid.: 310). His name is often mentioned in the memoirs of Tawfiq Sayigh covering the period from 7 April to 31 June 1962, published forty years after his death in the United States in 1971 (Chreih 2011). In the introduction, the book's editor, Mahmoud Chreih,¹⁵ recounts some of the stories surrounding the creation of the magazine, which ceased publication in 1967. It was funded by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an anti-communist organization established in 1950 and headquartered in Paris. The revelation in an article in the *New York Times* in 1966 of the CIA's funding of this organization provoked numerous denunciatory articles in the Arab press, and the magazine was even banned in Egypt and Iraq (ibid.: 1-9). One of his critics was Suhayl Idris, who had nevertheless welcomed Sayigh in Beirut in April 1962, a few
months before the publication of the first issue of *Hiwār*, telling him that his magazine would complete *al-Ādāb*'s mission and advising him to denounce communism moderately (*ibid*: 68–69).

23

Back in Lebanon, Riad al-Rayyes got a foot in the door of the Lebanese press via friends of his father. He joined *al-Sayyād* in 1961 after completing his academic studies, and also worked for the great Lebanese daily newspaper *al-Nahār* (The Day), which was edited by Joubran Tuéni, also a close friend of his father (al-Rayyes 2004: 136). In June 1962, al-Rayyes created the weekly newspaper *al-Muharrir* (The Liberator)¹⁶ with Hicham Abu Zahr, the editor of *al-Sayyād* (*ibid.*: 141). He also contributed to *al-Hayāt* (The Life) newspaper,¹⁷ which he left after the assassination of its founder Kamel Mroué in 1966 (*ibid.*: 153–157). Riad al-Rayyes also published articles in the Lebanese daily *al-Safir* (The Ambassador),¹⁸ as well as *al-Mustaqbal* (The Future), which was created in Paris in 1977 and edited by Nabīl Khoury¹⁹ (*ibid.*: 163–194). He had previously founded *al-Manār* (The Lighthouse) in London, which he claims was “the first Arab weekly in Europe,” published between November 1977 and July 1978 (*ibid.*: 214, 233). Al-Rayyes was thus, before becoming publisher, an important figure in the development of the Arab press exiled in Europe, mainly in Paris and London, and which resulted from the outbreak of the war in Lebanon (1975–1990) (Mermier 2022: 9–24).

## 2. 2. Into the Publishing and Literary Magazines World

24

Riad al-Rayyes devotes a chapter of his book to his activities in publishing, and specifies his motivations thus:

> After realizing my dream of creating the first Arab newspaper to be published in Europe, I set out to found the first Arab publishing house in London, which was possible on account of the fact that publishing did not require as much investment as newspapers. (al-Rayyes 2004: 255)

Charika Riad al-Rayyes publishing house was founded in London in 1986 with the mission of only publishing books in Arabic and no translated works. This was followed in 1989 by the opening, also in London, of the Kashkul Arabic bookshop, which was run by his wife Zinat Nassar (*ibid.*: 259–260). From 1991, the publishing house's books were made and published in Beirut so that they could be distributed in the Arab world, and on account of its lower manufacturing costs than in London (*ibid.*: 258–259).

25

In 1988, he created *al-Nāqid* (The Critic), a literary review of new publications, which distributed around 8,000 copies in six Arab countries. He considered it an integral part of his publishing house (*ibid.*: 271). He specifies that the magazine “did not represent a political ideology, unlike the Arab nationalism of *al-Ādāb*, the Western liberal modernity of *Shiʿr*, or the ideologies specific to the poet Adonis in *Mawāqif*” (*ibid.*: 276). Al-Rayyes, referring to the transfer of the magazine from London to Beirut, emphasizes the “progressive, secular, liberal, and nationalist” orientation of his project aimed at “fighting against the fundamentalist phenomenon before it spreads,” and denouncing “in its first issue, in July 1988, the ‘blacklist’ of Arab writers published in Saudi Arabia by fundamentalists, which generally referred to them as infidels” (*ibid.*: 282).

## 2. 3. Beirut, Between Censorship and Nostalgia

26

As regards his activity as a publisher in Lebanon, Riad al-Rayyes is critical of the slogan “Beirut Arab book capital” because of the emergence of new centres of Arabic
publishing since the 1990s, but also because of restrictions on freedom of expression in
Lebanon (al-Rayyes 2004: 263–269).

27

However, he devotes a whole chapter to evoking his passion for the Beirut of his youth. He describes the city's most popular cultural and political hotspots, explaining that the social, intellectual, and cultural *qibla*²⁰ of his generation was the neighbourhood of the American University of Beirut (AUB) with Uncle Sam's restaurant, the Ras Beirut bookshop in the middle of Bliss Street, and Faysal Restaurant, situated opposite the university entrance (now a McDonald's), which he describes as "a virtual university... from which Arab political and cultural figures who had played various roles in their home countries graduated, surpassing the number of graduates of the AUB itself" (*ibid.*: 360–361). He then mentions the city centre with the Roxy bookshop next to the cinema of the same name, and the Place de l'Étoile (sometimes called Place de l'Horloge) where foreign newspapers, Western and Egyptian paperbacks, crime novels translated into Arabic, and comics imported from the United States were sold. The Khayyat bookshop on Bliss Street mainly sold academic books in English which could not be found at the Roxy bookshop. However, he devotes longer passages to the Ras Beirut bookshop (which closed in 2008) that the Iraqi-Palestinian writer Jabra Ibrahim Jabra considered as the most important cultural venue in Beirut, while Youssef al-Khal and the *Shi'r* magazine group made it a site for the exchange and dissemination of ideas. In addition to the Faysal restaurant with its strong political character and Uncle Sam which was the meeting place of writers and artists, Riad al-Rayyes mentions other important spaces of sociability such as the Café Dolce Vita in Raouché (by the sea), a night-time meeting place for politicians and journalists, and the cafés of Hamra Street such as Modca, Wimpy, Le Café de Paris, Eldorado and Strand (*ibid.*: 358–363). He pays particular attention to the Horse Shoe café, which would become a Lebanese cultural landmark after opening on Hamra Street in 1959 (*ibid.*: 363–364).

28

Entitled “The Pain of Nostalgia: The Years of Beirut,” the penultimate chapter of the book is focused on the al-Rayyes’s relationship with the city as he knew it from 1950 to 1975, which was how he thought he would find it on his return from London. Despite his disappointment, he proclaims his love for Beirut, portrayed as “the only Arab capital where you can still breathe, although this may be with one lung, or half a lung, whilst in the others you can’t breathe at all” (ibid.: 357). Finally, in what could be considered a conclusion, al-Rayyes returns to his career as a journalist and “paper merchant” (*warraq*) and to his multiple identities, journalist and writer, Lebanese and Syrian, affirming his faith in the twinning of Damascus and Beirut, under the slogan “One people, one newspaper, in two homelands,” parodying that of the regime of Hafez al-Assad, “one people in two states.” He concludes by stating that he has certainly found Beirut to be limited in scope, but that Damascus was even more so (ibid.: 367–371).²¹

29

In his memoirs, Riad al-Rayyes, unlike Suhayl Idris, puts his career as a journalist in the forefront, and publishing is merely a continuation in the domain of the dissemination of ideas. In fact, the books he wrote are essentially collections of reports, particularly on the Gulf countries. The evocation of the Beirut of his youth restores a cultural topography linking places and institutions predominantly located in the district of Ras Beirut to the west of the capital. Although these memoirs aim to retrace the itinerary of a journalist and cultural entrepreneur with a pan-Arab and transnational dimension, they make the bitter observation of the disappearance of Beirut's melting pot with its
important sites of social interaction. The conflicts around the publisher's censorship draw a line between this idealized pre-war Beirut and a contemporary city whose cultural role has diminished in view of the new regional dynamics observed at the time of writing the memoirs.

### 3. Fathi al-Biss, from Fatah Student Youth in Beirut to the Arab Publishers' Association

30

Like Riad al-Rayyes, Fathi al-Biss is one of those Arab publishers whose period spent in Beirut coincided with a cultural and political socialization that was crucial for the continuation of his professional career. He was born in the West Bank in the al-Fawwar refugee camp in 1951, where his family had first fled before they settled in the Aqabat Jaber camp near Jericho. This Palestinian publisher, a Jordanian national, published an autobiographical account entitled *Inthiyal al-dhakira. Hadha ma hasal* (Covered Memory: Here's What Happened) (Al-Biss 2008) via his own publishing house, Dār al-Shurūq. A significant proportion of his memoirs are devoted to his experience as a Palestinian student and activist in Beirut before and during the Lebanese war that began in 1975. His book paints the self-portrait of a student leader who became a pharmacist before embarking on publishing. He left his mark on the Jordanian-Palestinian cultural landscape by opening a pan-Arab publishing house based in the two locations, as well as a bookshop and cultural centre in Ramallah, while also creating a literary magazine devoted to new publications and contributing significantly to the founding of the Arab Publishers' Association in 1995.

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>Figure 3</figcaption></figure>

Cover of the memoirs of Fathi al-Biss.
3.1. The American University of Beirut: An Urban and Militant Socialization

31 Fathi al-Biss came to Beirut in 1968 on a scholarship from the American Friends of the Middle East association to complete his secondary education at the International College, a prestigious English-speaking high school next to the American University of Beirut. His personal geography of the city as it is presented in his book, is primarily, as it was for Riad al-Rayyes, within the perimeter of Ras Beirut, which includes Hamra Street "with its cafés, cinemas, restaurants, and adjacent streets filled with cabarets before which prostitutes attempt to pick up clients." He also mentions Maktabat Lubnan (the Lebanon bookshop) on Bliss Street where the AUB is located, and the Mahyo kiosk where he would buy newspapers and magazines. But engagement in the Palestinian cause appears to be the high point of his memoirs. The author notes that he joined Fatah²² through a high school classmate and took part in training camps in southern Lebanon (al-Biss 2008: 53-56). He was appointed a member of the Fatah student committee while still in his final year at high school (ibid.: 93). In 1971, lacking funds, he was forced to abandon his studies in the faculty of pharmacy at the AUB, but obtained an Iraqi scholarship to continue his studies at the University of Baghdad. He rejected the proposal to become leader of the Ba'ath Party²³ for non-Iraqi students, and was forced to return to Beirut where he continued his political activities while seeking expedients for earning a living. He thus proposed to the *al-Muharrir* newspaper that he become its correspondent for universities, and gave private lessons to the children of a wealthy Syrian family to prepare them to enter higher education. At the Fatah student committee he tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent the use of violence against Jordanian students at the AUB (ibid.: 100-102). While his enrolment was finally accepted at the university for the academic year 1971-1972, he had to continue his studies at the Arab University of Beirut, which exempted some Palestinian students from tuition fees. The Palestinian student fund eventually allowed him to re-enrol in the faculty of pharmacy at the American University, while a scholarship from Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyān, president of the United Arab Emirates, provided him with unexpected financial security (ibid.: 106, 123).

32 Fathi al-Biss's readings, mentioned in his memoirs, link him to the Marxist current, and his political responsibilities ramped up when he was elected to lead the Fatah student branch of the AUB, which also included the Beirut College for Women and Haigazian University²⁴ (ibid.: 131-136). In April 1974, he was imprisoned along with sixty students who participated in the occupation of the AUB to protest the increase in tuition fees and was expunged from the university along with 103 other students (ibid.: 207-212). He was expelled to Cairo and found work at the Palestinian news agency Wafa, which was regularly frequented, from Beirut, by Nabil Chaath,²⁵ whom he had met at the AUB (ibid.: 220). In Beirut, where he managed to return, although his scholarship had been suspended, he reunited with Fatah comrades who had regrouped within the Maoist-inspired Khatt al-Jamāhīr-Khatt al-sha‘b (the mass line-the people’s line). Palestinian leader Abu Jihad asked him to head the editorial staff of *Filastīn al-muhtalla* (Occupied Palestine) magazine (ibid.: 224-247). After being permitted to re-enrol at the AUB in 1976, he graduated as a pharmacist the following year and returned to al-Buq’a in Jordan to open a pharmacy (ibid.: 252-253, 291).
3.2. From Pharmacist to the Book Trade and Publishing

33 The entry of Fathi al-Biss into the world of books was facilitated by his integration into Palestinian networks in Beirut. He opened the al-Shorouk bookshop in Amman in partnership with Maher al-Kayyali, the brother of Abd al-Wahhab al-Kayyali, founder and director of *al-Mu'assasa al-'arabiyya li al-dirāsāt wa al-nashr* (the Arab institution for studies and publishing) publishing house, founded in Beirut in 1969. This business partnership did not last long owing to the suspicions of the Jordanian national police force about Maher al-Kayyali, whose brother 'Abd al-Wahhab was at that point secretary general of the Arab Liberation Front and a member of the national command of the Ba'ath Party (with a pro-Iraqi tendency). The Dār al-Shurūq publishing house was created after the bookshop and had success early on when it won a tender from the Ministry of Education to print schoolbooks (al-Biss 2008: 300–303).

34 Al-Biss evokes his friendship with the Palestinian poet Ibrahim Nasrallah, whose first collection of poems, *al-Khuyūl 'alā mashārif al-madīna* (The horses are on the outskirts of the town), he published in 1980, and with whom he shared an apartment which became, in his words, “a cultural meeting place,” where he mixed with several of the friends he had met in Beirut. He expresses nostalgia for this city, which he says is a vital nexus of Arabic publishing (ibid.: 304–305):

> I decided to visit Beirut out of desire and necessity. Out of desire for every square metre of Beirut that I had wandered and for all the people I had met. Out of necessity because my work in publishing and distribution makes it necessary to keep abreast of new releases and establish relationships with publishers (ibid.: 315).

35 After describing his abandoned engagement to an Egyptian woman, he met at the Cairo book fair in January 1983 and his marriage to a cousin in 1985, he recounts having to abandon his Master's degree in philosophy at the Jordanian University because of the resignation of his professor and the fall of the dinar that placed him on the brink of bankruptcy. After this financial crisis, he created *al-markaz al-'arabī li tawzī' al-matbū'āt* (the Arab Print Distribution Centre), which became *Sharika li intāj al-matbū'āt* (the Society for the production of printed matter), established in partnership with Lebanese Nāsir Āsī. The latter was also responsible for the artistic and technical realization of *al-Jadīd fi 'ālam al-kutub wa al-maktabāt* (News from the World of Books and Bookshops) magazine, which Fathi al-Biss edited for five years (1994–1999) and which he had to stop, against his will, on account of serious financial losses.

36 Al-Biss describes the role he played in founding the Jordanian Publishers' Union, which he chaired for three terms until 2002. He was also involved with founding the Union of Arab Publishers in 1995. He served as treasurer and then vice-president for two terms until 2007 and focused his work on copyright and freedom of expression. We are thrown into a particularly important episode in the professional organization of Arab publishers when he recounts the rivalry between Egyptian and Lebanese publishers and the battle he won against the other Arab Publishers Union, created earlier in 1981 under the aegis of the Libyan authorities²⁶, whose founders were Libyan Khalifa al-Talīse and Lebanese Suhayl Idris (ibid.: 327–350).

37 Fathi al-Biss was forced to sell his shares in the *Markaz al-'arabī li al-matbū'āt* (Arab Publications Centre) in Beirut and to sell his pharmacy in the al-Buq'a camp to finance Dār al-Shurūq's move to Ramallah. Two branches of the bookshop were then opened in
Gaza and at an-Najah University in Nablus before they were closed to allow the creation of a new “cultural institution” in Ramallah, inaugurated on 21 August 2006 (ibid.: 337-350).

38

Fathi al-Biss's memoirs illustrate to a certain extent the existence of Beirut as a Palestinian capital before the Israeli invasion of 1982, whose political nucleus was a neighbourhood in western Beirut ironically nicknamed the "Fakhani Republic," where the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had its headquarters. Its roots extended to Ras Beirut with anchor points in the PLO's Palestine Research Center (1965-1983), the AUB, and the various social venues and cultural and media spaces frequented by Palestinian intellectuals and journalists. Fathi al-Biss was one of eleven leading figures interviewed in research of the history of student struggles at the AUB between 1967 and 1975 (Rabah 2009) on account of his experience in the student section of Fatah. His memoirs shed light on the ideological foundations of an area of Arabic publishing that seamlessly combines nationalism with commercial orientation.

## 4. Nasser Jarrouss: A Tripolitan Publisher in the Arab Book Market

39

Nasser Jarrouss was born in Haifa in 1947. His family moved to Tripoli and obtained Lebanese citizenship. After studying in Tripoli, Jarrouss enrolled in the faculty of Law at Saint Joseph University of Beirut in 1966. His entry into the book trade was, according to him, due to the time he spent at the newspaper distribution company where his father worked in Tripoli and which belonged to Mustafa al-Mawas, who was responsible for distributing all Arab newspapers in northern Lebanon in the 1950s. The murder, in the early years of the Lebanese war, of Mikhail Farah, owner of the Tripoli bookshop al-Maktaba al-haditha (The Modern Bookshop), a meeting place for writers and intellectuals from the north of the country, may also have been a factor in him embarking in the book industry on account of the void left by Farah (Jarrouss 2021: 31-32). In 1978, he created a book distribution company with his brother Basil, which was located opposite his father's business. They also distributed newspapers for the Farjallah company in Beirut. The Jarrouss Press publishing house was established in 1980 (ibid.: 36-40) following the founding of the Le Bouquin bookshop.

40

While his father's profession a determining factor in his entry into the book trade, his meeting in 1990 with the Lebanese publisher Abboud Abboud (1937-2008) constituted a turning point for his professional career and his activity within the professional associations of Lebanese and Arab publishers (ibid.: 84).²⁷ The members of the Syndicate of Publishers Union in Lebanon's board of directors, elected in December 1993, on which he sat, were part of the most commercial segment of Lebanese publishing, and Abboud Abboud, of the Maronite faith, was one of the most prominent figures for his pioneering exploration of marketing Islamic books in the lucrative markets of the Arabian Peninsula.²⁸

41

In 1995, Nasser Jarrouss played a role in the creation of the aforementioned Arab Publishers' Union and was part of the publishers' committee that drafted its statutes with Muhammad Adnān Salīm (Syria), Fathi al-Biss (Jordan), Muhammad Rachad (Egypt), and Nabil Sader (Lebanon). It was decided that the union should have two seats, the general secretariat in Beirut and the presidency in Cairo, and that the
president be Egyptian and the general secretary Lebanese. The first assembly of the union was held in Beirut on the sidelines of the first international book fair of the Lebanese capital, created in 1995, under the supervision of Nabih Berri, president of the Chamber of Deputies and leader of the Shiite Amal movement. Nasser Jarrouss was its president for seven years until 2001, the year of its last edition (Jarrouss 2021: 88–91). This book fair was created by the Syndicate of Publishers Union in Lebanon to compete with the one organized by the Arab Cultural Club, which was inaugurated by the Sunni prime minister (Mermier 2005: 135–136). However, Nasser Jarrouss mentions that the two fairs merged in 2003 under the second mandate of Samira Assi, director of Dār al-Andalus, sister-in-law of Nabih Berri²⁹, and president of the Syndicate of Publishers Union in Lebanon (Jarrouss 2021: 112–118).

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>Figure 4</figcaption></figure>

Cover of the memoirs of Nasser Jarrouss.

42

His memoirs provide a particularly eloquent testimony to the rivalries within the unions of Lebanese and Arab publishers and the means of access to the Arabic book market via integration into professional and peer networks. Jarrouss deals extensively with his work in professional organizations from 1994 to 2001, which allegedly drove him to neglect his commercial commitments. He talks with bitterness of the jealousy aroused by his international work, which he says led to him losing the election to the board of directors of the Syndicate of Publishers Union in Lebanon in 2002. He particularly emphasizes the role he played in the development of Arab and international relations in Lebanese publishing, mentioning the Syndicate of Publishers Union in Lebanon joining the International Publishers Association (IPA) (ibid.: 110–111)³⁰.
43

His account also reflects Arabic publishing's gravitational shift towards the Gulf countries, to which he devoted much of his international work (ibid.: 131–141). He claims to have recommended the International Prize for Arabic Fiction,³¹ one of the biggest Arab literary prizes, to be held in Abu Dhabi in 2007, rather than in Beirut—a choice that was initially considered and eventually ruled out for financial reasons (ibid.: 120). His memoirs end with a return to Tripoli and discussion of his family relationships, his friendship with Fathi al-Biss in particular, and his commitment to the Orthodox Melkite community which he is affiliated to. Finally, he depicts the cultural and literary scene of Tripoli to signify the loyalty he maintains to his city and region. In his memoirs, Beirut is the place where professional, commercial, and institutional alliances were forged which were crucial for the development of his “provincial” publishing house, through access to markets and Arab book fairs and the organization of the profession in terms of Lebanon and the Arab world.

## Conclusion: A Collective Memory of the Arabic Book Space?

44

Do these life stories correspond to a testimonial and memory-based production specific to the “social group of intellectuals [...] [the] cohesion [of which] depends on its internal contradictions, and is nourished by and made up of multiple voices, dialogues and discourses, right up to the closest personal sphere” (Dakhli 2009: 258)? In fact, their authors situate their “singularities” in very different sectors of activity: press, literature, political action, publishing, and, even when within the publishing trade, in very differentiated segments. The question of the figure of the publisher and his or her place in a hierarchy of intellectual figures, notably the writer and the journalist, and of the registers of writing, stands out first of all. The opposition analysed by Pierre Bourdieu (1999: 3–28) in the field of French publishing between a more “autonomous” and a more “commercial” pole is certainly found in this context, but is combined with other political, economic, and cultural considerations. As established by Johan Heilbron and Gisèle Sapiro (2008: 33):

> Supply and demand are not simply given, they are social constructions perpetuated by specific groups—a construction in which non-market bodies, such as state institutions and cultural bodies [cf. Bourdieu 1980], take part. Contrary to the economic definition of the economy, other dimensions, including the political and the symbolic, are present and their own effectiveness cannot be ignored if we wish to understand the actual functioning of markets [cf. Bourdieu 2005].

45

We should add here the effects specific to the Arab publishing system and, in relation to the latter, also take into account the changing place of Beirut in a transnational context: the city constitutes “a relevant unit of observation for tracing the circulation of cultural products, which depend on the localization of instances of distribution like publishing houses or galleries.” (Sapiro 2018 [2013]: 172).

46

Between Suhayl Idris's (shortened) memoirs, which are clearly in the literary field, and those of Nasser Jarrouss, which represent the commercial and institutional pole of Arabic publishing, the autobiographies of Riad al-Rayyes and Fathi al-Biss are at the crossroads of these two poles. For Idris publishing appears to be an extension of his profession as a journalist and newspaper entrepreneur, while for Jarrouss, entry into the publishing profession is an extension of his activity in the book trade. For Idris, al-
Rayyes and al-Biss, publishing has a bridging function between ideological, political, and cultural positions that find their preferred expression in the creation of journals and their intended role in the promotion of Arab literary and editorial production. This is the case for *al-Ādāb* by Suhayl Idris with his pan-Arab nationalist commitment, the magazines *al-Nāqid* and *al-Nuqqād* by Riad al-Rayyes, which were part of his policy of promoting young Arab authors (Mermier 2005: 81-82), and *al-Jadīd fī ‘Ālam al-kutub wa-l-maktabāt* magazine by Fathi al-Biss, which aimed to raise the visibility of a dispersed Arab editorial production³². The disappearance of these magazines heralded the erosion of the Beirut cultural press in the 2000s.

47

These memoirs also show a shift in Lebanese publishing from central to west Beirut, which coincides with the increasing role played by the Lebanese capital in Arabic language publishing. Suhayl Idris' autobiography reflects a time (1940-1975) when book publishing and trade were concentrated in the old city centre of Beirut. The only spaces of sociability mentioned are the offices of the Dār al-'Ilm li-l-Malāyīn publishing house, which merge with those of *al-Ādāb* journal as well as the office of Saïd Freiha, who led *al-Sayyād* newspaper. The latter also plays an important role in the memoirs of Riad al-Rayyes, who began in journalism in its columns. From the 1960s, the Ras Beirut area became, on account of its large recreational, commercial, and educational offer, a draw on the scale of the Arab East (Kassir 2003: 415-494). While Riad al-Rayyes peppers his memories with the names of cinemas, bookshops, and newspaper kiosks in downtown Beirut, the testimony of Palestinian Fathi al-Biss relates only to the neighbourhood of the American University of Beirut. In fact, the city centre had become a front line during the first months of the war, and the eastern part of the city, controlled by Christian militias, was virtually inaccessible to Palestinians. However, for these two publishers, Ras Beirut district represented a gateway to the entire Arab world, which motivated al-Rayyes's return to Lebanon and the launch of al-Biss's printing and distribution companies in Beirut. Moreover, even when in London or Amman, both remained linked to the intellectual and political networks that formed in Ras Beirut.

48

These autobiographies share a pan-Arab dimension that is apparent and promoted but whose fundamental elements evolve over time. Suhayl Idris' memoirs thus reveal both the cultural centrality of Cairo and the development of an Arab, rather than simply Lebanese, literary scene based out of Beirut, as signalled by the creation of new journals and publishing houses. The opinions of Riad al-Rayyes on Beirut tarnish its image as “book capital of the Arab world” by exposing several cases of censorship that affected his publishing house and highlighting the vitality of other book fairs including Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. While Nasser Jarrouss reaffirms the significance of Lebanese publishing in the context of the founding of the Arab Publishers' Union in 1995, he also expounds the growing influence of the Gulf countries on the world of Arabic books notably through the mention of the creation of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in Abu Dhabi.

49

In these memoirs, the mention of the names of places and persons in relation to the narrative of experiences of the city, which are generally associated with professional and intellectual sociabilities, is linked to the manifestation of individuation as stated by geographer Marcel Roncayolo (2003: 66), for whom “the city is good ground for experimenting with this inflection,” in other words the relations between the city and the processes of subjectivation through the qualification of urban spaces by individual memory.³³ These autobiographies certainly reveal particular positions from the worlds
of the Arabic book but participate, by their very diversity, in the constitution of a group
memory formed in Beirut that fits into “a system of interrelations of individual
memories” (Bastide 1970: 94).

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Memoirs Mentioned

AL-BISS Fathi (2008). *Inthiyāl al-dhākira*. Hadhā ma hasal [Covered Memory; Here's What Happened]. Amman/Ramallah, Dār al-Shurūq.

AL-RAYYES Riad (2004). *Ākhir al-khawārij*. Ashyā' min sīra sahāfiyya [The Last Outsider. Selected Pieces of a Journalistic Journey]. Beirut, Dār Riad El-Rayyes.

AL-RAYYES Riad (2017). *Sahāfī al-masāfāt al-tawīla* [Long Distance Journalist]. Beirut, Dār Riad El-Rayyes.

IDRIS Suhayl (2002). *Dhikrayyāt al-adab wa al-hubb* [Literary and Sentimental memories]. Beirut, Dār al-Ādāb.

JARROUSS Nasser (2021). *Hikāyatī ma' al-kitāb*. Sīra wa infitāh haraka al-nashr al-'arabiyya 'alā al-'ālam [My Story in Books or How Arab Publishing Opened to the World]. Tripoli, Jarrouss Press Nāshirūn/Jarrouss Press Publishers.

SĀLIM Muhammad 'Adnan (1994). *Humūm nāshir 'arabī* [Concerns of an Arab Publisher]. Damascus, Dār al-Fikr.

SĀLIM Muhammad 'Adnan (2000). *Al-kitāb fī al-alfiya al-thālitha, lā waraq wa lā hudūd* [The Book in the Third Millennium: No More Paper, No More Borders]. Damascus, Dār al-Fikr.

SĀLIM Muhammad 'Adnan (2001). *Al-kitāb al-'arabī wa tahaddiyyāt al-thaqāfa* [The Arabic Book and the Challenges of Culture]. Damascus, Dār al-Fikr.

NOTES

1. We could also mention the three books by Syrian publisher Muhammad Adnan Sālim (1932-2022), editor at Dār al-Fikr (Damascus) and Dār al-Fikr al-Mu‘asir (Beirut), which contain no biographical elements and deal with the state of publishing in the Arab world and beyond: *Humum nashir ‘arabi* (Concerns of an Arab Publisher, 1994); *al-kitab fīi al-alfiya al-thaniya, la waraq*
wa la hudud (The Book in the Second Millennium: No More Paper, No More Borders, 2000); and al-kitab al-‘arabi wa tahaddiyat al-thaqafa (The Arabic Book and the Challenges of Culture, 2001).

2. See the book by Nasir Asi (2010), which is a collection of articles written by others on the evolution of printing and publishing with several chapters devoted to the history of Arabic books and publishing in Beirut. Nasir Asi worked as a technical and artistic editor at the magazines al-Diyār (The Country) and al-Hasnā’ (The Beautiful), and at the Lebanese newspapers al-Safir and al-Nidā’ (The Appeal) in the late 1970s.

3. Editor’s note: The references of the corpus are the subject of a dedicated section in the bibliography.

4. I would like to thank Rana Idris, daughter of Suhayl Idris and general manager of Dār al-Ādāb, for the valuable information she gave at the “Les mondes intellectuels beyrouthins” seminar hosted in the Institut français du Proche-Orient, Beirut, 23 January 2023. A book in French outlines the stages of his career in the worlds of literature, translation, and publishing (Kobeissi 2019).

5. All issues are available online.

6. The circumstances of the creation of the journal and the publishing house are detailed in interview excerpts published in Mermier (2005: 60-61).

7. *Shi’r* journal was founded in 1957 in Beirut by the Lebanese poet Youssef al-Khal. It ceased publication in 1970. It advocates a poetic modernity detached from political commitment, unlike its rival *al-Ādāb*, see Badini (2009).

8. This publishing house first specialized in dictionaries, academic and extracurricular books, see Mermier (2005: 40–41).

9. On *al-Makshāf* journal and its founder Fouad Hobeiche, see Bizri (2013: 279–308) and Mermier (2013).

10. Saïd Freiha (1912–1978) was born in Beirut. He founded *al-Sayyād* in 1943 after spending ten years working as a journalist in Aleppo. On Saïd Freiha and his media organization Dār al-Sayyād, see Abd al-Mawlā (1991). I would like to thank Candice Raymond for introducing me to this work.

11. On the Lazariyé building, see the description by the German geographer Helmut Ruppert (1999: 91–126).

12. He also mentions that the book was criticized in the Lebanese journal *al-Adīb* in August 1948 by Sayyid Qutb, who he says read it while he was writing *Social Justice in Islam* (Idris 2002: 122). Sayyid Qutb joined the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1950s and was executed by the Nasser government in 1966.

13. Brummana is a village located in the Metn region overlooking Beirut.

14. Lebanese historian and sociologist Fawwaz Traboulsi studied at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He is the author of *A History of Modern Lebanon* (2007), and *Soie et fer. Du mont Liban au Canal de Suez* (Actes Sud/Sindbad, 2017). He was one of the leaders of the Communist Action Organization in Lebanon.

15. Mahmoud Chreih was born in Beirut in 1952 to a Palestinian family. He was professor of philosophy at the AUB.

16. *Al-Muharrir* was a Lebanese daily newspaper founded in the 1960s and was the voice of the pro-Iraqi Ba’ath Party in Lebanon. Opposed to Syrian military intervention alongside Lebanese Christian militias, it was forced to close its doors in 1977 after the Syrian army invaded its offices in Beirut.

17. *Al-Hayāt*, created in Beirut in 1948, was conservative and opposed to the policies of Egyptian leader Gamal Abd al-Nasser, which reportedly prompted the assassination of its founder in 1966. It ceased publication in 1976 owing to the fighting in Lebanon. The title was bought by Saudi Prince Khalid Bin Sultan in 1988 and the newspaper’s headquarters moved to London. Its printed version was distributed throughout much of the Arab world until 2018 when it ceased publication again.
18. *Al-Safir* was founded in Beirut by journalist Talal Salman (1938–2023) who made it the voice of the Arab nationalist and pro-Palestinian left in Lebanon from 1974 to 2017. Editor’s note: see the article by Aya Khalil on Joseph Samaha, a figure in the *al-Safir* newspaper, in this issue. The spelling *al-Safir* is used in preference to as-Safir, which is also employed, for the purpose of being faithful to the letters and pronunciation in Arabic.

19. *Al-Mustaqbal*, created in Paris in 1977, is one of many Arab periodicals that were launched in Paris or relocated there on account of the Lebanese Civil War (Abdulkarim 1993: 80–85 The title was relaunched in 1999 in Beirut and financed by Rafik Hariri (1944–2005), a Lebanese businessman who made his fortune in Saudi Arabia, served as Prime Minister of Lebanon between 1992 and 1998 and again between 2000 and 2004, and was assassinated in Beirut on 14 February 2005.

20. Direction of Mecca to perform Muslim prayer.

21. Biographical additions can be found in the book which is an interview with Syrian journalist Souad Jarouss published thirteen years after the publication of these memoirs, see al-Rayyes (2017).

22. The Palestinian National Liberation Movement, commonly referred to as Fatah from the reverse acronym of its name (*Harakat Tahrīr Falastīn*), meaning “conquest” in Arabic, was founded in 1968 by Yasser Arafat, Salah Khalaf, and Khalil al-Wazir. It is the largest Palestinian political organization within the Palestine Liberation Organization.

23. The Ba’ath Party (meaning “resurrection”), whose full name is the Socialist Party of Arab Resurrection, was established in Syria in 1944. It advocates for the unity of Arab countries in a single “Arab nation.” It came to power in 1963 in Syria and in 1968 in Iraq following coups d’état. It split into an Iraqi and a Syrian branch with extensions in other Arab countries in 1966.

24. Haigazian University was founded in 1955 in Beirut in the Hamra district. The language of instruction is primarily English, but Armenian and Arabic are also used. It is financed by the Armenian Evangelical Community.

25. Nabil Shaath, a member of Fatah, was foreign minister in the Palestinian Authority government between 2003 and 2005 and prime minister for six days between 18 and 24 December 2005.

26. On the subject of the professional organizations of Arab publishers, see Mermier (2005: 173–180).

27. On the Syndicate of Publishers Union in Lebanon, see Mermier (2000: 55–62).

28. He created Dār Al-Jīl in 1971.

29. Nabih Berri has led the Shiite political party Amal, allied with Hezbollah, since 1980, after the death of its founder, Imam Moussa Sadr, who had disappeared in Libya two years earlier. He has been Speaker of the Lebanese parliament since 1992.

30. Bodor Al Qasimi, founder of the Emirates Publishers Association in November 2020 and daughter of Sultan bin Muhammad al-Qasimi, ruler of the Emirate of Sharjah, became its president in 2021. They are both praised for their international work on behalf of Arab publishers in Nasser Jarrouss’s account (2021: 108–109).

31. The International Prize for Arabic Fiction was eventually established in Abu Dhabi based on the model of and in partnership with the Booker Prize in London. It has recognized an Arabic novel every year since 2008, and is considered the most prestigious literary event in the Arab world.

32. With the exception of *al-Ādāb*, which had a notable longevity (1953–2012), the journals mentioned had a short existence. Candice Raymond (2021: 251) points out the high number of titles created during the Lebanese War: about forty, while “this number would fall (without collapsing) to about twenty-five new titles created throughout the next fifteen years, from 1991 to 2005.”
33. This reflection is borrowed from my article on literary and cinematographic representations of urban spaces (Mermier 2018: 9–21).

ABSTRACTS

In the 1970s, Beirut, which had often been considered as the Arab book capital alongside Cairo, became the “public space of the Arab world,” with its publishing sector reflecting the intellectual and ideological debates going on within an Arab space torn apart by political divisions. Many Arab intellectuals and cultural businesspeople converged there, taking advantage of the city’s reduced censorship, opportunities for economic liberalism, and the support of various Arab political groups (including the Palestine Liberation Organization) to create journals and publishing houses. This research brings together these figures’ memoirs in an original corpus in order to deepen our knowledge of the history of publishing in the Arab world. For Lebanese (Suhayl Idris and Nasser Jarrouss), Syrian (Riad al-Rayyes), and Palestinian (Fathi al-Biss) publishers, Beirut represents a significant stage in their intellectual and professional careers. However, these publishers are heterogeneous insofar as each has a very different rooting, not only within publishing, but also in the literary, media, cultural, and political worlds. Moreover, their texts do not hail from a single genre. This article focuses on different changes in direction they made in terms of content and style, the backdrop to the writing, and the professional, political, and cultural image which their authors wish to emphasize.

Dans les années 1970, Beyrouth, souvent considérée comme la capitale du livre de l'espace arabe avec Le Caire, était devenue « l'espace public du monde arabe », son milieu éditorial réfléchissant les débats intellectuels et idéologiques en cours dans un espace arabe déchiré par des dissensions politiques. De nombreux intellectuels et entrepreneurs culturels arabes s'y étaient retrouvés, profitant d'une censure réduite, des opportunités du libéralisme économique ou du soutien de différentes forces politiques arabes (dont l'Organisation de libération de la Palestine), pour créer des revues et des maisons d'édition. Cette recherche constitue leurs mémoires en un corpus inédit pour approfondir notre connaissance de l'histoire de l'édition dans le monde arabe. Pour les éditeurs libanais (Souheil Idriss, Nasser Jarrous), syriens (Riad al-Rayyes) et palestiniens (Fathi al-Biss), Beyrouth représente une étape importante de leur parcours intellectuel et professionnel. Pour autant, ces figures d'éditeurs sont hétérogènes en raison de leurs ancrages très contrastés, non seulement dans le monde de l'édition, mais aussi dans les mondes littéraire, médiatique, culturel et politique. Leurs écrits ne se rattachent pas non plus à un genre unique. Leurs inflexions différenciées en matière de contenu et de style, leur contexte de leur rédaction et l'image professionnelle, politique et culturelle que leurs auteurs souhaitent mettre en avant, sont l'objet de cet article.

En los años 70, Beirut, a menudo considerada como la capital del libro del espacio árabe junto con El Cairo, se había transformado en “el espacio público del mundo árabe”, y su ámbito editorial reflejaba los debates intelectuales e ideológicos en curso en un espacio árabe desgarrado por las disensiones políticas. Muchos intelectuales y empresarios de la cultura árabes se encontraron allí, aprovechando que había menos censura, las oportunidades del liberalismo económico o el apoyo de distintas fuerzas políticas árabes (como el Organización para la Liberación de Palestina), para crear revistas y casas editoriales. Esta investigación forma un corpus inédito con sus
memorias para profundizar nuestro conocimiento de la historia de la edición en el mundo árabe. Para los editores libaneses (Souheil Idriss, Nasser Jarrous), sirios (Riad al-Rayyes) y palestinos (Fathi al-Biss), Beirut representa una etapa importante de su trayectoria intelectual y profesional. Sin embargo, estas figuras de editores son heterogéneas debido a sus arraigos tan dispares, no solo en el mundo de la edición, sino también literario, mediático, cultural y político. Sus escritos tampoco responden a un solo género. Sus inflexiones diferenciadas en cuanto contenido y estilo, el contexto en el que fueron redactados y la imagen profesional, política y cultural que sus autores quieren poner de relieve, representan el objeto de este artículo.

In den 1970er Jahren war Beirut, das neben Kairo oft als Buchhauptstadt des arabischen Raums gilt, zum „öffentlichen Raum der arabischen Welt“ geworden, da sein Verlagsmilieu die intellektuellen und ideologischen Debatten reflektierte, die in dem von politischen Auseinandersetzungen zerrissenen arabischen Raum geführt wurden. Viele arabische Intellektuelle und Kulturunternehmer hatten sich dort eingefunden und nutzten die reduzierte Zensur, die Möglichkeiten des Wirtschaftsliberalismus oder die Unterstützung durch verschiedene arabische politische Kräfte (Dârunter die Die palestinensich Befreijigsorganisazioon), um Zeitschriften und Verlage zu gründen. Diese Forschung stellt ihre Memoiren zu einem bisher unveröffentlichten Korpus zusammen, um unser Wissen über die Geschichte des Verlagswesens in der arabischen Welt zu vertiefen. Für libanesische (Souheil Idriss, Nasser Jarrous), syrische (Riad al-Rayyes) und palästinensische (Fathi al-Biss) Verleger stellt Beirut eine wichtige Etappe in ihrem intellektuellen und beruflichen Werdegang Dr. Dennoch sind diese Verlegerfiguren aufgrund ihrer sehr kontrastreichen Verankerungen nicht nur in der Welt der Verlage, sondern auch in der literarischen, medialen, kulturellen und politischen Welt heterogen. Auch lassen sich ihre Schriften nicht einem einzigen Genre zuordnen. Ihre differenzierten inhaltlichen und stilistischen Flexionen, der Kontext, in dem sie verfasst wurden, und das berufliche, politische und kulturelle Bild, das ihre Autoren hervorheben wollen, sind Gegenstand dieses Artikels.

## INDEX

**Palabras claves:** autobiografías, Beirut, campo literario, centralidades culturales, editores, edición, espacio árabe, intelectuales, memorias urbanas, revistas, revistas culturales

**Mots-clés:** autobiographies, Beyrouth, centralités culturelles, champ littéraire, éditeurs, édition, espace arabe, intellectuels, mémoires urbaines, périodiques culturels, revues

**Keywords:** arab space, autobiography, Beirut, cultural centralities, intellectuals, litterary field, journals, cultural periodicals, publishers, publishing, urban memories

**Schlüsselwörter:** arabischer Raum, Autobiografien, Beirut, Intellektuelle, kulturelle Zeitschriften, kulturelle Zentralitäten, literarisches Feld, Stadtgedächtnisse, Verlage, Verlag, Zeitschriften

**Subjects:** Sources

## AUTHORS

### FRANCK MERMIER

Anthropologist, senior researcher at CNRS (IRIS, UMR 8156). ORCID: 0000-0001-8902-1788. franckmermier[at]yahoo.fr