![]() Interwoven with this is Shadid’s account of his ancestors and their world, which in the modern era would become Lebanon, Syria and Israel. The main narrative of “House of Stone” concerns the rebuilding of the house. Against the advice of local friends, and in a country on the verge of renewed civil war, Shadid decided to assemble a work force and rebuild his old family home. Both sides of his family, the Shadids and the Samaras, had come from the town, and had immigrated to Oklahoma at the beginning of the 20th century. The following year Shadid came to live in Marjayoun. In a defiant gesture to show that the house, “whatever its condition, remained a home worth care,” he bought a small olive tree for $4 and planted it near the wrecked building. A few months later he returned to find that the upper story of the house had been hit by a half-exploded Israeli rocket. In 2006, Shadid visited the abandoned house of his great-grandfather in Marjayoun, a largely Christian town in southern Lebanon that, after a century of wars, was battered and decayed, and was cut off from its natural hinterland by the Israeli and Syrian frontiers. ![]() In his writing, he showed a depth of intellectual inquiry and a skepticism toward conventional wisdom matched by few other correspondents. ![]() ![]() Anthony Shadid, who died in February at the age of 43 while reporting the crisis in Syria, was one of the most intelligent, experienced and well-informed journalists covering the Middle East. ![]()
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