Ghada Samman's 1976 Arabic novel, Kawabis Beirut, translated by Nancy Roberts as Beirut Nightmares (1997), is set against the backdrop of the Lebanese Civil War. The novel recounts the life of an unnamed narrator caught in the middle of a combat zone at the outset of the war.

The movement toward writing, analyzing, and promoting environmentally aware literature, which started most visibly in western academia, is fast becoming an international phenomenon such that it is only fitting to make a serious effort at incorporating non-western voices in ecocritical studies. As an Arab scholar writing and teaching in the USA, I am especially interested in advocating for the participation of Middle Eastern scholars in this emerging field that combines many scholars' universal passion and concern for literature and the natural world. The project of incorporating Arab voices, however, is a two-way street. It requires a genuine cooperation between Arab scholars and writers who are interested in environmental scholarship and existing ecocriticism scholars, writers, and editors in the West.

Beirut '75 by Ghada al-Samman: An Autobiographical Interpretation “All ye who enter here, abandon all hope!” “Beirut has ruined me, that’s all!” “That’s not true,” he replied, “You women all accuse Beirut of ruining you when the truth of the matter is that the seeds of corruption were already deep inside you. All Beirut did was to give them a place to thrive and become visible. It’s given them a climate where they can grow.” “She wondered to herself– if they had allowed my body to experience wholesome, sound relationships in Damascus – would I have lost my way to this extent?” _______________________________________________ In Beirut ‘75, Ghada al-Samman shockingly depicts the tragic lives of fictitious characters who find themselves in Beirut, Lebanon prior to the outbreak of the war. Heralded by many critics as being a work that prophesied the Lebanese civil war, Beirut ‘75 is instead a work that expresses the existential and political views of its author and not the complete reality of the socio-political situation at that critical moment in Lebanese history.

Even though Ghada al-Samman argues that the work is not autobiographical and that she does not profess any particular political stance, the work is permeated with her political views and her own personal life experience. The city of Beirut, torn between the East and the West, can even be viewed as a metaphor for the author herself. In his book, Ghada al-Samman Without Wings, Ghali Shoukry states that a literary work should not be studied in the context of the author’s life even though the author’s autobiography is one of the vital elements in the creation of the artwork. Once the work has been created, Shoukry contends, the author’s life should remain distant from an analysis of the work itself. Korporativ scenka treh bogatirej. While I agree in theory with Shoukry’s position, I believe that since al-Samman has intentionally revealed so much about herself and about Beirut ‘75 in her personal and carefully documented interviews, an autobiographical approach to this work is justified and, at the very least, enlightening. In the first part of this study, I present a summary of relevant autobiographical details on Ghada al-Samman. In the second part, I show how these details relate specifically to Beirut ‘75.