Songs for the Darkness

Songs for the Darkness is the story of four generations of women from the Lebanese Dali family, residing in the village of Kasura in Mount Lebanon: Shahira, the great-grandmother, “Mother of All,” who marries at the beginning of the twentieth century and fights for the education of her children; her daughter Yasmin, who dies after giving birth to Leila; Leila, who lives in the imaginary world of novels, an escape from her marriage to a violent man; and Asmahan, the narrator of the story, who emigrates after her husband takes their son away from her on his seventh birthday. Their dreams, frustrations and contradictions are depicted against the backdrop of pivotal events in Lebanese history: the tragedies of the Great War; World War II and its intersection with the era of independence; all the way up to the civil war and the Israeli invasion of Beirut. Amidst these changes, male violence casts a heavy shadow over the crisis-ridden reality experienced by women, infecting their relationships with even the most progressive and open-minded men of the story. Only songs are able to comfort the soul in its darkness – but can anyone hear them?