What Will Survive

By Joan Smith

July 1997: Lebanon makes the British headlines when an Englishwoman dies in a landmine explosion near the town of Nabatiyeh.

The dead woman is Aisha, a former model with an Egyptian mother, visiting the Middle East for the first time. Reporters descend on her Somerset home, linking her death with Princess Diana's high profile campaign for a ban on landmines. Amanda, a young features writer, is sent to Beirut to write a human interest story about Aisha's death. There she finds a city only just recovering from more than a decade of civil war. Lebanon is still occupied by Israel in the south, prompting a bloody conflict with Hezbollah, and she realises that thousands of ordinary Lebanese are trapped between two ruthless enemies. She begins to suspect that Aisha may have been another victim of this forgotten war. But with a wayward princess and a charismatic new prime minister making headlines at home, how can she make sure that justice is done for Aisha - and for Lebanon?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Dec 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781448207893

Joan Smith

Joan Alison Smith (born 27 August 1953, London) is an English novelist, journalist and human rights activist, who is a former chair of the Writers in Prison committee in the English section of International PEN. Smith was educated at a state school before reading Latin at the University of Reading in the early 1970s. After a spell as a journalist in local radio in Manchester, she joined the staff of the Sunday Times in 1979 and stayed at the newspaper until 1984. She has had a regular column in the Guardian Weekend supplement, also freelancing for the newspaper and in recent years has contributed to The Independent, the Independent on Sunday, and the New Statesman. In her non-fiction Smith displays a commitment to atheism, feminism and republicanism; she has travelled extensively and this is reflected in her articles. In 2003 she was offered the MBE for her services to PEN, but refused the award. She is a supporter of the political organisation, Republic and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. In November 2011 she gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into press and media standards following the telephone hacking practiced by the News of the World. She testified that she considered celebrities thought they could control press content if they put themselves into the public domain when, in reality the opposite was more likely. She repeated a claim that she has persistently adhered to in her writings that the press is misogynistic.

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