Writing in the dark without electricity, Bissan Fakih recounts the blast that devastated Lebanon’s capital one year ago, and charts the country’s dizzying collapse into utter dysfunction and despair ever since.

The time is 10pm. Darkness enshrouds me as I write these words, after the last candle ran out half an hour ago. Electricity outages mean a lack of Internet, the information artery connecting me to the virtual world outside. I’m cut off from my physical surroundings, forbidden to leave my house by the curfew imposed after 6pm each day; a curfew that came after persistent…