{"id":291207,"date":"2021-04-09T21:18:56","date_gmt":"2021-04-10T00:18:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=291207"},"modified":"2021-04-13T19:24:23","modified_gmt":"2021-04-13T22:24:23","slug":"a-descendants-photobook-portrayal-of-a-trip-to-lebanon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/a-descendants-photobook-portrayal-of-a-trip-to-lebanon\/","title":{"rendered":"A descendant\u2019s photobook portrayal of a trip to Lebanon"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 The photographer Bruno Bou Haya took his first trip to Lebanon alongside his mother in July 2019, to celebrate the 70th<\/sup> anniversary of the coming to Brazil of his Lebanese grandparents. He recently released photos taken across the country during the trip, including ones from his grandparents\u2019 village of Beit Menzer. The photobook \u201cDeus tamb\u00e9m descansa<\/a>\u201d (Portuguese for \u2018God Also Rests) is out from publishing house Vento Leste.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother had been [to Lebanon] before with my grandmother. I\u2019d never been there, and I didn\u2019t meet my grandparents either. I took the trip to connect with the culture that was in my home before the passing of my grandparents. With an identity that\u2019s an inevitable part of me, like my complexion, my strong Arab features: the beard, the thick eyebrows\u2026 I have always been in this place of a Lebanese descendant because of that,\u201d Haya told ANBA. He argues that his father, who\u2019s of Portuguese and Italian descent, also has Arab features. \u201cLooking back at my father\u2019s genealogy, I would surely find that it\u2019s in Moorish territory, no doubt about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photographer Bruno Bou Haya is a third-generation Lebanese descendant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Haya said he\u2019d always wanted to see Lebanon more than he did Europe or the United States. \u201cIt was just a matter of time, because it would be like going home, and the seventieth anniversary of my grandparents\u2019 migrating was a great occasion for us to take this trip together.\u201d A friend of Haya\u2019s mother who\u2019s also a descendant tagged along.<\/p>\n

His grandparents\u2019 village is 110 km north of Beirut. \u201cIt\u2019s a place on the hills where it snows, near a cedar forest. I went to the village, and much of the book features photos of the house my grandfather built. That\u2019s where I stayed. There are photographs there of my Lebanese cousins and of my great-aunt\u2019s home.\u201d<\/p>\n

The photographer\u2019s Lebanese family are Maronite Christians. Haya himself is agnostic, but God is in his book\u2019s title. He said the idea came during the trip: \u201cI\u2019d been seeking a name, a magnet that would pull the images together, and \u2018God also rests\u2019 felt interesting because when I looked at all that landscape, I \u2013 an agnostic who\u2019s once been an atheist \u2013 identified Lebanon as a truly holy land. And that\u2019s not just a figure of speech. And when you come upon such a beautiful landscape, you also find social ills. I see lots of similarities with Brazil, both the beauty and the twisted societal structure. The title is an homage to that holy land, and it also looks at these problems squarely, but respectfully. It\u2019s this conflation of sacred and profane, with the human flaws that came about once God took his rest. It\u2019s the author\u2019s hypothesis for the rights and the wrongs of this land, even though it\u2019s holy. It\u2019s a really similar country to Brazil, but they have the transversality of religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haya made a point of seeing as much of the Arab country as he could. \u201cIt was interesting to get a more holistic picture of Lebanon, and since it\u2019s a small country, it wasn\u2019t hard to see it from North to South.\u201d<\/p>\n

[metaslider id=291220]<\/p>\n

The photographer said the thing he liked the most about the trip isn\u2019t on the material realm. \u201cI had lots of misgivings as a descendant who\u2019d heard stories about Lebanon since forever. I though the country\u2019s beauty and qualities might be romanticized by the immigrants. When I went, I realized that what they used to tell me is part of the materiality, of the sentiment of the land. And I don\u2019t mean just the residents, because the Lebanese love their country, they love their land, and that\u2019s easy to tell even if you\u2019re just visiting. You can sense the love in things, and you understand why, so that was really important to me. It was crucial.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even as a descendant, before going to Lebanon, Haya realized there was ignorance surrounding the place. \u201cWe identify Lebanon as a Middle East country, an almost desert-like setting, but it sits in the Mediterranean, there\u2019s something of Greece and Italy about it. And so the most important thing was to identify that beauty, and the fact that what I\u2019d always heard about is real, it\u2019s not just romanticizing, and to identify those Mediterranean features.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haya worked on the graphic design for the book for a year after the trip, and the work was completed weeks before the Port of Beirut diaster in August 2020. \u201cAt that moment I felt really powerless, because once you get to know the territory, the relevance of the port, the history of Lebanon, you become eager to help. I was sad and shaken, and I thought that might be the right moment to discuss this connection, these ties Brazil has with Lebanon. And the book features research into this connection.\u201d<\/p>\n

[metaslider id=291213]<\/p>\n

The photographer said this connection predates even the arrival of the first immigrants. \u201cBoth see nature as part of their country. Brazil is named after the \u2018pau-brasil\u2019 tree, and the cedar is the symbol on the Lebanese flag. There are ties that go back to the founding of the nations. No matter how far apart, they are really close.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 96-page book features 50 photo, with text in Portuguese, English and Arabic. In addition to photographs by Haya, it includes ones from his grandparents\u2019 collection. It also includes a copy of a 1964 edition of newspaper \u201cO Cedro,\u201d by Lebanese immigrants in Brazil, with an obituary on the passing of his great-uncle, and a postcard from the author with notes about Lebanon. \u201cThe postcard is a short letter, a brief history of Lebanon, including the occupations and empires. The book concludes with that, and I rely on the postcard, which is a form of communication from a distance, to reference the diaspora.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book is about connections, Haya says. \u201cBrazil and Lebanon, the private and the public, the question of my individual family and society. I focus on my family to tell the tale of Lebanese migration, of this society that has been through so much, through the same things as my family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quick facts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Deus tamb\u00e9m descansa<\/a>
\nBruno Bou Haya
\nVento Leste publishing house
\nISBN: 978-85-990732-4-3
\n96 pages<\/p>\n

Contact info<\/strong><\/p>\n

@brunobou<\/a>
\n+55 (21) 99956-6544
\nbrunobouhayar@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/strong><\/p>\n

Press Release<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A third-generation Lebanese, Bruno Bou Haya went to Lebanon in July 2019. He recently released the book \u2018Deus tamb\u00e9m descansa\u2019 (God also rests), featuring pictures from across the country and images of daily life at his grandparents\u2019 village.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2305,"featured_media":291057,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[7874,32607,41153,10647],"class_list":{"0":"post-291207","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-fotografia-en","9":"tag-fotografo-en","10":"tag-imigracao-libanesa-en","11":"tag-libano-ar"},"wps_subtitle":"A third-generation Lebanese, Bruno Bou Haya went to Lebanon in July 2019. He recently released the book \u2018Deus tamb\u00e9m descansa\u2019 (God also rests), featuring pictures from across the country and images of daily life at his grandparents\u2019 village. ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}