A critic’s reading note
January 29, 2026A Levantine Youth The book first strikes the reader with the power of its narrative. Santi possesses an undeniable gift for evocation: Beirut before 1975, the scents of the Mediterranean, Jesuit liturgies, the fervor of an Oum Kalthoum recital, Saudi humidity, the solemnity of Mecca, the fury of the Christian militias. The text is carnal,…
Best seller in Lebanon
September 8, 2025Many thanks to Librairie Antoine in Lebanon, where Une jeunesse levantine has just moved up from 10th place in August to 5th place today among the bestsellers! https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1472488/meilleures-ventes-du-mois-a-la-librairie-antoine-36.html https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1475990/meilleures-ventes-du-mois-a-la-librairie-antoine-37.html I’ll be happy to see you there tomorrow, Tuesday the 9th, from 6 to 8 p.m.!
What Imam Khomeini had confided to Michel Santi
June 29, 2025A Levantine Youth is more than a testimony: it is a dizzying meditation on sacred violence, the reversal of alliances, and the tragedy of the 20th-century Middle East. A literary and well-documented book, at the crossroads of political novel, personal diary, and geopolitical confession. It probes, with rare acuity, our relationship to power, religion, deception,…
What Khomeini Told Me
June 22, 2025Khomeini was a gentle man. His gaze was always of indisputable kindness toward me—almost paternal, never intimidating. His face bore regular, harmonious, almost feminine features. I perceived a refined, elegant person, the opposite of obscurantism. In fact, he even smelled good, as if he had put on perfume. A mystic stood before me, a theologian…