In Beirut '75, Ghada al-Samman shockingly depicts the tragic lives of fictitious characters who find themselves in Beirut, Lebanon prior to the outbreak of the war. Heralded by many critics as being a work that prophesied the Lebanese civil war, Beirut '75 is instead a work that expresses the existential and political views of its author and not the complete reality of the socio-political situation at that critical moment in Lebanese history. Even though Ghada al-Samman argues that the work is not autobiographical and that she does not profess any particular political stance, the work is permeated with her political views and her own personal life experience. The city of Beirut, torn between the East and the West, can even be viewed as a metaphor for the author herself.