Culture

Poetic prose or prosaic poetry? That is the question that first comes to mind when reading Cette vieille chanson qui brûle ( This Old Song That Burns ). Writing is at the heart of Alexandre Lenot’s second novel, which captivates readers less through its dramatic plot than through its rich, flowing sentences. It explores strained family ties, twinhood, mixed identity, the search for love and recognition, ecology, and activism. The novel is dense, yet flows effortlessly, drawing readers into a spiral of cruel events that unfold in prose of exhilarating power. This is the work chosen for the 25th edition of the Francophonie’s Five Continents Prize. The choice carries particular significance as the award celebrates a quarter-century of recognizing French-language literature from around the world.

The Petit Palais is devoting its first major retrospective to Eva Gonzalès, running from September 15 through January 24, bringing together nearly one hundred paintings, pastels, and prints. The only official pupil of Édouard Manet, and a contemporary of Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt without ever truly belonging to the Impressionist group, she was above all a woman who forged her own path in a 19th century that offered few such opportunities to artists of her sex. Exceptionally well curated, the exhibition is also moving: behind the pupil, the model, the wife, and the mother, it reveals, work by work, a painter claiming her freedom.

September has just come to an end and, unfortunately, I did not manage to achieve one of the goals I had set myself for the month, namely to finish a text I am currently writing on Lebanese cinema. A text shot through, among other things, with the question of what this cinema should film at a time when the country is living through a new Israeli invasion, when Lebanese society is more divided than ever, and when narratives from elsewhere about what is happening to us are already beginning to emerge. I am thinking, for example, of the film that has been announced about the pager operation, which will probably remain silent about the destruction caused by Israel in southern Lebanon and instead invite the viewer to marvel at the technical feat involved in such an operation.

Every year, when the Beirut Spring Festival organized by the Samir Kassir Foundation begins, I find myself watching the audience before I watch the stage or the screen. Perhaps because, to me, Samir’s name is not simply the name attached to a festival, and because the Samir Kassir Foundation is not simply a cultural institution, I find myself looking for something else in people’s faces: does the Beirut Samir believed in still exist? Are there still people who want culture, debate, art, and freedom? Is the city still capable, amid everything it has endured, of bringing people together around an idea rather than around a leader, a sect, or a fear?

At a time when public debate can seem to be running out of steam, the thinking of German philosopher Jürgen Habermas stands out as a singular compass and remains strikingly relevant today, as it offers a way of thinking about secular modernity, the place of religion, the nation-state and nationalism in a European context, and critical thought more broadly, all through the lens of “discourse ethics” and “dialogue free of domination.” Within this framework, Habermas rejects the notion that good and evil can be defined by an absolute authority, a fixed tradition or an unquestionable metaphysical truth. Instead, he argues that they must be worked out rationally among free and equal individuals in an open space for dialogue.

At a time when conflicts are destabilizing cultural balances and directly threatening the treasures of the past, some exhibitions go beyond the purely artistic realm to become genuine acts of cultural resistance. That is precisely the case with the exhibition "Byblos, Millennial City of Lebanon," on display until August 23, 2026, at the Institut du monde arabe (IMA) in Paris. Featuring nearly 400 objects, it traces the ancient history of Byblos, one of the oldest ports in the world, while remaining firmly rooted in current events and the conflict that continues to affect Lebanon and the Middle East today. For the exhibition has also, in spite of itself, been shaped by war.

In a previous article, we noted that despite the succession of crises that have beset Lebanon, the country’s artistic scene has continued to display remarkable resilience, both at home and abroad. Exhibitions, festivals, gallery openings, new institutions and heritage initiatives: art and culture linked to Lebanon have never entirely disappeared, despite formidable challenges. On the contrary, they now appear to be regaining momentum, contributing to the emergence of a form of cultural diplomacy on the international stage and offering a glimpse of what could become a distinct cultural policy for the Land of the Cedars.

After more than twenty years spent at the heart of the great houses of high jewelry and international luxury, from Cartier to Hermès, from De Beers to LVMH, between Paris, London and New York, Marie Berthelon could have continued along a perfectly mapped trajectory at the summit of the system. Instead, she chose to step away from it to revive Rouvenat, a nineteenth-century Maison that had disappeared and that she is now reactivating as a living territory, at the crossroads of heritage and the avant-garde. At the head of a small, deeply committed structure, she defends a singular vision of high jewelry: a luxury of circularity and memory, where recycled gold, antique stones rediscovered in forgotten safes, and raw or polished materials do not seek perfection, but light. A jewelry that does not add itself to the world, but awakens it, transforming what already existed into a contemporary presence.

A Lebanese Pop-Up Store is being organized on May 30 and 31 in Paris at the Aalamuna gallery by the company ELFAN to promote Lebanese artists. This new ELFAN initiative is part of a broader global movement aimed at supporting Lebanese artists by developing Lebanese cultural presence in France and Europe. Before outlining the context of this new Lebanese Pop-Up, a brief overview of the ongoing global dynamics, in which Culture Minister Ghassan Salamé is participating, seems useful in several respects. For several years, particularly since the events of 2019 and the explosion at Beirut port in August 2020, Lebanese culture has been experiencing growing momentum abroad. Clearly, Lebanese cultural initiatives outside Lebanon are not new: the diaspora has always played an essential role in promoting and showcasing Lebanese cultural identity. But today, this phenomenon appears to be taking on a new scale.

As we have seen previously, Gibran Khalil Gibran was a multifaceted artist – at once poet, thinker, writer, and highly gifted painter. Although he is best known in the West for his literary work The Prophet , published in numerous languages, his pictorial work is equally remarkable and was recognized during his lifetime. “Art is the expression of thought through brush, chisel, pen, or song. It is the divine spark that burns within each of us.” “I would like to paint what lies at the very depths of the human heart.” Gibran showed an aptitude for drawing from childhood. In 1904, his first drawings were exhibited at Fred Holland Day’s studio in Boston, thanks to Mary Haskell, his mentor. In 1908, encouraged by her, he enrolled at the Académie Julian as well as in Auguste Rodin’s studio in Paris in order to refine his painting technique. This encounter with Rodin marked a turning point in his vision of the human body. Rodin himself compared Gibran to William Blake. Like Blake, Gibran illustrated his own texts, seeking to create a “total” work in which word and image echo one another.