At the start of the summer of 2020, in a Lebanon ruined by economic crisis and inflation, in an exhausted Beirut rising up for true democracy while the world was paralysed by the coronavirus, Charif Majdalani set about writing a journal. He intended to bear witness to this terrible, confusing time, to confront it with his experience, his reflections, and his emotions - and perhaps he also hoped to endure it through writing. This chronicle of suffocation and collapse collided on August 4 with the explosion of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate in the port of Beirut. From then on, it became a record of the catastrophe and the resulting outburst.
