Eight years ago, a visit to Aaliya’s Books in Beirut would have offered clear evidence of a flourishing literary scene in Lebanon. By day, readers sank into cracked leather armchairs and perused the shop’s extensive collection of English-language books. At night, book launches, readings and discussion groups regularly filled the venue. Guests would crowd the narrow bar, angling for a spot close to the bartenders while waitstaff darted through the crush of people.
Aaliya’s “Cliffhanger” storytelling nights became a fixture of the city’s cultural calendar, reviving traditional “hakawati” tales before an eager audience. On those evenings, visitors would spill out into the adjacent alleyway, straining to catch the end of a story. The bookshop had only opened in 2016, but within eight months, footfall had increased by 400% compared to the previous cafe located at the venue.
Today, Aaliya’s is shuttered up.
The closure speaks to a wider trend in the city. Over the past few years, several of Beirut’s literary spaces have been forced to shut down amid increased financial pressure and the continued crises facing the country. The iconic Librairie Antoine branch in Beirut Souks closed after suffering extensive damage during the 2020 port blast. Hook, a community-focused reading cafe, temporarily ceased operations in July 2025 due to mounting financial pressures. Papercup, once a cornerstone of Mar Mikhael’s creative scene, was replaced by a natural wine bar in 2023.
The list goes on. Ayad Khabbazeh, owner of Kitabi 2021 Bookshop, tells me that closures have hit the Hamra district particularly hard. “Ras Beirut Bookshop, Ashrafieh, Four Steps Down, Khaya, Almadina, Librairie du Liban, Said Bookshop,” he trails off. “They are all closed now.”
The current condition of the sector stands in stark contrast to the era that first earned it its name. “Cairo writes, Beirut publishes and Baghdad reads” is a phrase that repeatedly crops up in the conversations I have. It refers to the period before Lebanon’s civil war, when its liberalism made it a cultural beacon of the Arab world. Local presses translated Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser into Arabic. Political tracts, literary magazines and radical novels started to emerge from dissident writers expelled from their own countries.
Over time, heightened censorship began to impact the sector. During the civil war, Christian militias banned Arab nationalist and Marxist works, while Islamist factions censored a myriad of secular, Israeli and leftist writings. Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005 brought with it a new openness, though the General Security Directorate retained the right to ban books.
The literary sector no longer benefits from some of the liberties it once enjoyed, with censored works still difficult to source today. “Salman Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses’ is a prime example,” Niamh Fleming-Farrell, the co-founder of Aaliya’s Books, tells me. The book, published in 1988, was banned a year later amid waves of controversy from Lebanon’s Muslim community, who saw the fictionalized version of the Prophet Muhammad as an example of blasphemy. “Suppliers simply tell you that you cannot order or sell it.”
Another notable case of censorship is “Princess Nina” (2013) by Marlise Achterbergh. The children’s book describes a princess being pressured into finding a prince to marry. After searching far and wide, she falls in love with another princess. The LGBTQ+ content upset a large number of parents and conservative factions in the country, resulting in an official ban by General Security.
Despite these attempts at censorship, a large number of pro-LGBTQ+ and sexually explicit books have slipped through the cracks. “Bareed Mista3jil,” a 2009 anthology of real stories from queer women in Lebanon, Maya Zankoul’s illustrated diary “Amalgam Vol. 2” (2022), featuring sexual content and critiques of institutions, and Saleem Haddad’s 2016 “Guapa,” a gay coming-of-age novel, are examples of works still available in major bookstores across the country.
“Even if books are officially banned, there are ways to get them,” Ayman Mhanna, executive director at the Samir Kassir Foundation’s SKeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom, tells me. “You can buy them when abroad, access it on a Kindle or download a PDF online.” For those who prefer a paperback, there are even printers in Beirut offering to turn PDF versions of banned books into physical copies.
Librarians at Kitabi, Halabi Bookshop and Barzakh tell me that banned books often circulate at their secondhand bookshops. “‘The Da Vinci Code’ by Dan Brown, and its translated Arabic edition released by a Lebanese publisher, were banned in Lebanon in 2004 for its offensiveness towards Christianity,” says Lana Halabi, the owner of Halabi Bookshop. “We still receive secondhand copies of it to sell.”
There is little concern that resellers of banned books will face prosecution. “In the last 10 years of my career, I have only ever known one bookshop to have a check from the General Security,” Halabi recalls.
Perhaps what is more prevalent in limiting the scope of the literary scene is the rise of self-censorship.
“A different hue of censorship has arisen — one that is not from above but rather within,” says William Dobson, another co-founder of Aaliya’s Books. “We had some pushback from the staff before hosting pro-LGBTQ+ events.” While they had no issue with the events personally, Aaliya’s staff members lived in the conservative Dahiyeh district. “Concern arose about potential backlash from neighbors.” The team mitigated against potential backlash by reducing online publicity, giving staff the option not to work and covering the windows of the bookshop.
There is also a strong prevalence of online hate speech in Lebanon. “The Samir Kassir Foundation monitors daily violations,” Mhanna says. “We find they are most often directed towards LGBTQ+ communities and certain political groups.”
Occasionally, bookstores receive backlash. “Hateful comments were uploaded on Instagram after we made a tribute post about the passing away of Nawal El Saadawi, a vocal Egyptian feminist author, activist and physician who wrote on the subject of women in Islam, sexuality, patriarchy, class and colonialism,” Halabi tells me. Incidents such as these have led to bookshops taking more caution about what they publicize online or in their stores.
Authors are also unable to benefit from some of the liberties previously enjoyed by Lebanon’s printing and publishing scene. “Writers who dare to be transgressive often cannot find local publishers willing to take the risk,” says Joumana Haddad, an author and journalist whose feminist magazine Jasad has encountered significant backlash for covering topics like sexuality and erotica.
Haddad’s reading cafe, Cafebrairie 33, sells books you would struggle to find anywhere else in Lebanon. A quick scan of their shelves reveals copies of “Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous” by Gillian Anderson and “Sex and Punishment” by Eric Berkowitz. Haddad hopes to eventually expand Cafebrairie 33 into a publishing house that supports dissident writers.
Although both state- and self-imposed censorship affect the literary sector, there are clear loopholes enabling people to publish and acquire sensitive materials. The greater challenges facing Lebanon’s literary scene — those that are far harder to overcome — stem from the multipronged crises facing the country.
“In the last six years alone, Lebanon has faced a revolution, a financial crisis, the port blast, COVID-19, political instability and a war,” recounts Eleena Sarkissian, editorial director of the publishing house Turning Point Books. These events have significantly inhibited the literary sector’s spending power and focus.
Halabi Bookshop started a monthly book club at its Beirut-based shop in May 2017. The team soon received requests to host the club throughout the country, with the founder first expanding to Tripoli for a few sessions before settling on permanent monthly fixtures in Sidon and Tyre.
Each month, attendees would read a prescribed book before participating in a group discussion. The conversations were lively, often erupting into furious debate and heaps of laughter, depending on the topic. “In each city, we had a different type of audience, which often meant the discussions varied,” Halabi explains. “In Tyre, our attendees were younger, while in Beirut, they were older and more mature. I was able to witness all of these rich conversations play out and use their insights to guide our other events.”
In October 2019, the revolution broke out. “We were at the ‘Death With Interruptions’ by José Saramago book club discussion in Beirut at the time,” Halabi recalls. “We could smell the tires burning.”
In the aftermath, roads were closed, making it hard for Halabi to travel to events outside of Beirut. COVID-19 restrictions, introduced in March 2020, further delayed the return of the book clubs.
“The worsening of the economic crisis and the Beirut port blast followed. The cost of travel and books increased — it became too expensive to run the events in all three locations,” Halabi says.
The tale Halabi tells rings true across the industry. Events were repeatedly cancelled, postponed or suffered from low attendance due to the ongoing crisis. Hook, located in Beirut’s southern suburbs, particularly struggled during Israel’s most recent war on Lebanon. Many of its core clientele were forced to flee the area. By the time the war ended, some customers had decided to move elsewhere.
Sourcing a reliable supplier became challenging, too. Before 2020, Aaliya’s was able to source books within a couple of weeks and benefit from at least 30-day payment terms. “Unfortunately, our supplier did not survive the crisis and we struggled to find a new one that offered the same service,” Fleming-Farrell recounts. “Suddenly, our books were arriving late or going missing. We were also having to pay up front, which limited our scope to stock a range of materials.”
Eager to support the local reading community, Fleming-Farrell would go out of her way to source books for customers. This meant employing informal routes, often asking individuals who were traveling to bring books from abroad. “I focused on getting the book into the person’s hands if they wanted it,” Fleming-Farrell says. “In those cases, it was rare to earn a profit from the sale.”
Financial issues were arising in all directions. “Our costs were increasing — I think our energy bills went up by 3,000% in three months,” Dobson adds. “Then the exchange rate was changing six or seven times a day.” These fluctuations made it difficult for the business to make any kind of financial projections. “We did not even know what the value of the money we were taking would be from one hour to the next.”
Sales and readership levels were falling dramatically, too. “We have had to halve our print runs,” says Sarkissian from Turning Point.
Some attribute declining sales to the rising popularity of alternative forms of entertainment. “Fewer people read today — they look for faster, less engaged activities online,” says Arij Shreim, head librarian at Barzakh. “TikTok, Instagram, YouTube videos are gaining popularity.”
Others cite the effects of psychological exhaustion due to the crises affecting Lebanon. Dobson recalls that people used to have more hope. “They were reading and engaging with issues; discussions at Aaliya’s would revolve around how to fix the crises facing the country.” As the situation worsened and the general mood became more futile, interacting with the cultural and literary scenes became less of a priority for some.
For the most part, however, Lebanon’s financial crisis was the leading contributor to declining sales. The general population, faced with mass inflation, depreciation of the local currency and the freezing of their access to deposits by the banks, had significantly reduced disposable income. This impacted their ability to invest in literature.
“Books are expensive, especially new ones,” Khabbazeh says. At Librairie Antoine, the biggest literary retailer in Lebanon, the average book costs between $15 and $20. Secondhand bookshops are slightly more affordable; at Kitabi, the average price of a used book is around $4. For context, the monthly minimum wage in Lebanon has only just increased in July from around $200 to $313.
Bookshops cut away at their own profit margins to remain affordable. “When we opened in 2016, the profit margin on a new book was around 25%-30%,” Fleming-Farrell says. “For context, in Ireland or the U.K., it is around 40%-50%. By the end of 2022, our margins had fallen to well below that.”
Despite their best efforts, Aaliya’s eventually made the decision to close their bookshop in December 2024, due to the mounting economic pressures. Faced with similar financial issues, Hook also chose to temporarily close in July.
Affordability issues not only impacted businesses but also readers themselves, because the city’s literary scene has limited access to free books. Beirut Municipality commissioned the Assabil Association, founded in 1997, to manage a public library network, providing them with spaces free of charge and minimal funding. After registering as an official nonprofit organization, Assabil was able to rely on private funding, too, eventually opening Monnot Library, Geitawi Library and Bachoura Library. Assabil’s mobile library, the “Kotobus” — a pun on “autobus” and “kotob,” meaning “books” in Arabic — has also served various regions in Lebanon since 2008.
While there is a clear appetite for these services — Assabil’s spaces had a total of 35,000 visitors and 25,000 books borrowed in the past year — there are significant limitations. A general consensus exists that there should be more public libraries to increase accessibility to literature, both in the capital and across the country. However, funding is limited. Assabil initially aimed to build 12 municipal libraries in Beirut alone, including in neighborhoods like Tariq al-Jadideh and Sassine, though these plans have yet to materialize. “There are no public spaces in Beirut because they have already been sold off to the highest bidder,” says Dobson.
A wider cultural shift is also needed in order to ensure people actually utilize the existing public libraries. “In Lebanon, people have a tendency to shy away from anything slightly public or governmental,” Khodor Al Akhdar, the manager at Barzakh, tells me. “There is an expectation that the libraries will not be taken care of or have the latest books.” This perception limits attendance at these spaces.
For the most part, the private sector fills the void. Guests at hybrid cafe-library spots like Barzakh and Riwaq are invited to pick a book from the shelves to read for free during their visit. It is common to find visitors hunting down a familiar, worn copy of a book to enjoy while drinking a cup of coffee. I have fond memories of visiting Barzakh myself while living in Hamra in 2021. Over the course of a month, I read “I Capture the Castle” by Dodie Smith in small installments.
During Israel’s latest war on Lebanon, a huge influx of refugees from the south of the country sought refuge in Hamra. “Once displaced, there was nothing they could do, other than waiting, so I offered to lend them books from Kitabi to read for free,” Khabbazeh says. Hundreds of books were borrowed from the shop by people staying within the 2-mile stretch of Hamra. They would read them within a day or two before coming back to exchange them for others.
When the ceasefire was announced in November 2024, those who had been displaced headed back to their homes immediately. By the time Khabbazeh returned to his bookshop at 10 a.m., over 150 of his books had already been returned to his neighbor next door. For Khabbazeh, it is instances like these that motivate him to continue.
Determined to cater to the region’s avid readers, Beirut’s surviving literary businesses have come up with inventive ways to stay afloat over the past few years. Kitabi Bookshop increased its social media presence, posting interviews with authors online and hosting events to encourage customers to visit. The team at Halabi Bookshop sought alternative methods to finance their operations. “In 2023, we secured a small grant and a microfinance loan,” Halabi tells me. The funds meant they could expand their operations; the team now has more space to smoothly fulfill book procurement orders for private and public libraries and institutions. They also grew their social media advertising efforts and offered books in nonconventional ways.
Publishers and printers learned to adapt. “We used to do a lot of guidebooks, but now people go online for that information,” Sarkissian tells me. “We started to publish more children’s books and self-help works.” Many of Lebanon’s printers shifted their focus in order to stay afloat. “We have worked with over eight printers in the past 20 years and, thankfully, none of them have been forced to close,” Sarkissian says. “Quite a few have specialized in making packaging for goods to bolster their incomes.”
Recently, there have been some promising signs of recovery. Halabi’s much-loved book club events, originally postponed due to the crises in the country, were resumed in 2024. They are now hosted every couple of months in Beirut, with the option for people to join online.
A similar event is gaining popularity at Curl Book and Coffee Shop in Badaro. When I visit, I find a cafe library packed with customers. The spot boasts modern interiors, with glittering wood-paneled walls and backlit bookshelves. Elena Ferrante’s “The Days of Abandonment” is laid out for sale; the work will be the focus of Curl’s next monthly book club event. I can already spot one customer reading the novel on the terrace outside.
As I relax in a corner nook, I spot two other visitors entering the shop. When an assistant asks if they are after anything in particular, they respond in unison: “We are just looking, thank you.” The pair peruse the collections intently, occasionally picking up a novel and reading a few pages. Neither of them purchases anything, but their interest is clear.
Beirut’s bookshelves may have gathered dust over the last few years, but it seems that readers are beginning to return. When they do, the city’s surviving spaces are ready to welcome them.
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