This book has been sitting unread on my shelves since my Bookslut days, and I am grateful that the April in Arabia and the Read the World 21 challenges prompted me to finally read it, because WOW. The memoir of a Lebanese woman who at 21 attempted to assassinate a general in the South Lebanese Army, which controlled the South as a proxy for Israel. Béchara was immediately captured and spent ten years imprisoned and tortured in a notorious camp called Khiam.

First of all, out of all the prison novels and memoirs in the world, when is the last time you read one by a woman? That alone makes this book remarkable. Second, while I have read the occasional novel set in Beirut, they usually only depicted a certain place in time. Béchara starts out with an idyllic representation of her childhood in Lebanon, before the Civil War, then takes us through the attacks, the infighting, the invasions, and many of the different factions involved in each. Granted, much of these recollections are through the eyes of the child she was at the time, but it is still a clearer and more thorough timeline than I knew previously. Third, Béchara is insistent here that she was a free agent. She takes us through how the experiences of her life "radicalized" her and how she made the decision that she wanted to do something big. Something important. And then sought out the people and contacts who could help her make that happen.

It is the second half of the book that deals with her decade in camp. (Béchara insistently, repeatedly objects to the representation of Khiam as a prison. As she rightly points out, prison is where you are sentenced after a trial, something none of her fellow detainees were ever given.) Her fierce determination to not let the camp break her, to find ways to use her time are astonishing. As are the descriptions of the grossly inhumane ways they were treated. Not just the outright torture — but the conditions they were kept in. This is definitely a book that will make you feel some rage.

But also, eventually, triumph. Unbeknownst to her, there were people working on her behalf for years. Eventually the Red Cross pressured Khiam into improving conditions in the camp, and releasing many of the prisoners. And finally, ten years later, Béchara herself.

A remarkable book. ( )