Collage created by Jaimee Lee Haddad.
Most people come into this world only once. But a select few manage to be born twice, their second arrival overshadowing the first. Fairouz is one of them. Her gradual iconization has gently subsumed Nouhad Wadih Haddad, her original name. She was born in November 1934, when the heart of Greater Lebanon still pulsed under the French Mandate.Nouhad’s modest childhood reflects the sweeping urban and demographic transformations of the first half of the 20th century. She was born to a Syriac typographer from Mardin — a town straddling the Turkish-Syrian border — who worked at the printing press of the newspaper Le Jour (L’Orient-Le Jour today), and a stay-at-home Maronite mother from al-Debbieh in the Chouf area.To trace the tender years of the myth before it became one is to shine a light on the genesis of a uniquely Lebanese fable, one...
Most people come into this world only once. But a select few manage to be born twice, their second arrival overshadowing the first. Fairouz is one of them. Her gradual iconization has gently subsumed Nouhad Wadih Haddad, her original name. She was born in November 1934, when the heart of Greater Lebanon still pulsed under the French Mandate.Nouhad’s modest childhood reflects the sweeping urban and demographic transformations of the first half of the 20th century. She was born to a Syriac typographer from Mardin — a town straddling the Turkish-Syrian border — who worked at the printing press of the newspaper Le Jour (L’Orient-Le Jour today), and a stay-at-home Maronite mother from al-Debbieh in the Chouf area.To trace the tender years of the myth before it became one is to shine a light on the genesis of a uniquely Lebanese fable,...