Beyond the thrill of the play and Noor Theater’s wonderful production, I was equally impressed by how several quality institutions had come together to offer the public this reading and the illuminating discussion that followed. The Martin Segal Theater Center, at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, hosted the event, under the able leadership of executive director Frank Hentschker. The English translation of the play and its first production in Beirut a few months ago largely reflected the work of two professors at the American University of Beirut – Robert Myers and Sahara Assad – along with Nada Saab at the Lebanese American University.

“American neighborhood” is not the story of a particular district of Tripoli, as much as it is the story of the whole city. The novel depicts the city in time and space, and taints it in multiple colors, as the author seems to have dipped his brush in its past and present, creating for us a heart warming portrait.

The novel has achieved through its narrative techniques an accurate characterisation of our current reality artfully, promoting the humane while nevertheless deploring the different manifestations of terrorism. The book also successfully uncovers the political and social roots of the phenomenon [of djihadism], which threatens our contemporary societies with destruction and collapse.

Douaihy draws the portrait of society, in his new novel “American neighborhood “, where each sentence imprints on the reader’s mind an evocative primeval image.

Al hayat, January 2014
It is as if the reader is walking in the city’s markets, inhaling the smell of raw fish mixed with that of soap, of the waste piled on the dirty river banks, and the scent of tobacco: «It is called American Neighborhood in reference to the abandoned Evangelical School… it overlooks the city’s river, and to access their homes, its inhabitants have no other choice but to climb long series of stairs»
Jabbour Douaihy was able to catch the precise moment of transition which we today live through …

By Rami Tawil, for Al Akhbar
January 2014

With his masterly narrative skills, the author of « June Rain » tell the story of Tripoli with great art, through a travel in time taking the reader back to the early twentieth century. Douaihy’s characters are created in the city’s spirit and its words, thereby creating the space where the story unfolds. (…)
This is the art of details, par excellence. Details that Douaihy perfectly possesses, and with which he weaves a precise panoramic picture of the city of Tripoli.
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