INTRODUCTION

The claims of this book rest on the idea that popular culture and modern forms of nationhood and national subjectivity have a profound relatedness. In Lebanon, this phenomenon manifests itself, among other forms, in the struggles to define, shape, and claim Lebanese identity in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. It is not surprising that the most prominent artistic family in Lebanon in the second half of the twentieth century – that of the Lebanese diva Fairouz (Fayruz, nee Nuhad al-Haddad, b. c.1933), her husband Asi Rahbani (‘Asi, 1923-86), her son Ziad Rahbani (Ziyad, b. 1956), and her brother-in-law Mansour Rahbani (Mansur, b. 1925) – would have played a role in these struggles. No artistic family or individual in Lebanon comes close in this period to the influence of Fairouz and the Rahbanis’ thousands of songs and tens of musical-theatrical works.