There are books that document, and then there are books that demand to be witnessed. Yazan al-Saadi's Lebanon is Burning and Other Dispatches is firmly the latter.
It is not a comfortable read but a work that shouts, whispers, grieves, and occasionally laughs through gritted teeth. It is journalism that bleeds, comics that cry, and a chronicle of a region perpetually on the edge, refusing to collapse quietly.
Yazan, a Syrian-Canadian journalist and editor based in Beirut, has long been known for work that pierces through the noise of conventional reporting.
His writing in outlets like The New Arab, The Nib, Jadaliyya, and The Public Source has been celebrated for marrying rigorous research with human immediacy.
Here, that instinct finds its fullest expression. Across 14 graphic "dispatches", drawn by an ensemble of illustrators from across the Middle East and North Africa, he crafts a tapestry of defiance, despair, and, crucially, persistence.
The book opens with Lebanon's 17 October uprising in 2019, flames licking across panels as protesters fill the streets. Omar Khouri's artwork is jagged, kinetic, alive with the electricity of that moment when people believed the impossible might happen.
From there, we move through the peril of humanitarian work, Bahrain's stifled revolution, Syria's drawn-out devastation, the weight of Palestine's struggle, Egypt's suffocating crackdowns, and Sudan's determined uprising.
Why tackle such weighty realities through comics? I asked him in our interview, and his answer revealed the conviction behind every page.
"I think the comic medium is quite a powerful tool to engage audiences and present information, and traditional journalism has its limitations… one of the most potent things about comic journalism is that it's subjective, and I think that's okay," Yazan tells The New Arab.
That subjectivity is what gives Lebanon is Burning its vitality. Where traditional reportage often strips the journalist out of the story, Yazan is present in every panel. He does not hide behind neutrality; he owns his stance, his rage, his solidarity.
"Objectivity is a tool of privilege," he argues in the prologue. "Human beings are not inherently objective… We know the value of freedom of expression and the power that comes from exposing the corrupt. We know the cost."
It's a stance that pushes back against the fetishisation of objectivity in much of Western media, resulting in a work that is both deeply personal and widely resonant.
"The works in the book are very subjective to me and my identity, and I don't shy away from that," Yazan continues.
Each chapter is illustrated by a different artist, a deliberate choice that mirrors the polyphonic reality of the region itself.
"I love the anthology medium," Yazan explains. "When you're dealing with our region, West Asia, North Africa, it's very vibrant. There isn't a homogeneous aspect to it. By working with different artists, specifically artists that have a connection to each topic, I thought it would just make the pieces stronger."
And it does.
The clash of styles, from Ghadi Ghosn's satirical caricatures to Sirène Moukheiber's ethereal pastels, prevents the book from sinking into a single aesthetic or emotional register. It reminds the reader that each uprising, each tragedy, is distinct, even as they share the DNA of oppression and resistance.
There is a risk, of course, in this approach. The book is dense, intellectually and emotionally. It is loaded with essays, annotations, and historical context. For readers unfamiliar with the region's intricacies, it might feel overwhelming, even alienating.
But this is not a flaw so much as a challenge. Yazan does not coddle; he invites you into complexity and trusts you to grapple with it.
What, I ask him, makes these disparate stories feel connected?
"I didn't initially plan for a unifying theme," he admits. "But of course, there are universalities. When we're looking at human resistance, there is something universal about that."
That universality is what lingers after the final page. Despite the specificity of place, Beirut, Khartoum, Sanaa, Cairo, what emerges is a portrait of humanity's stubborn refusal to yield to power’s cruelty.
There are moments of unbearable grief here. The Beirut port blast chapter, particularly, is difficult to get through, not because it is manipulative but because it refuses to let you look away.
Yet, paradoxically, the book is not devoid of hope. It is a hope of a quiet, durable kind - the hope that exists simply because people keep resisting, keep telling their stories, keep drawing and writing and fighting, even when it seems futile.
Lebanon is Burning and Other Dispatches is ultimately a book about responsibility. Yazan feels it as a journalist and as a citizen of a wounded region.
"There's always a risk regardless of the topic," he says. "But I think it's a responsibility that I grapple with… because these complicated issues arise from multiple reasons and factors and the solutions are going to be complicated and need collective action."
This is not a perfect book (what urgent work ever is?), but it is a necessary one. It demands engagement not just from readers in the Middle East but from anyone who has grown numb to headlines about "unrest" and "conflict" in places they have never seen. It is a reminder that behind every news alert, there are voices, lives, and sometimes, as in Yazan's panels, flames.
To read Lebanon is Burning and Other Dispatches is to be unsettled. It is to be implicated. It is, in Yazan's own words, to be "transparent about our positions" in a world that prefers we remain silent.
Sarah Khalil is a senior editor at The New Arab