Tramontane (Rabih) de Vatché Boulghourjian

Abstract

The story of a blind Lebanese musician confronted with an unforgiving bureaucracy and the traumas of a violent past (the Lebanese civil war), Vatché Boulghourjian’s Tramontane (Rabih) deals with questions of memory and the ghosts of war through the difficulties of a war orphan to obtain a passport. The article analyses the trials he undergoes to discover his identity and decades-old family and political secrets through a historical approach, creating parallels between the hero’s journey and a society’s difficulties to deal with a troubled period of the country’s history.