Diego, a Spaniard, moved to Lebanon from Pakistan in 2014 and has truly captured the mood and atmosphere of a country struggling with the twin perils of ineffective government and crumbling infrastructure; and of a proud people who find themselves in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Michelle McNally, the former Director of Photography at The Times, used to tell photographers “Don’t show me what a place looks like. Show me what it feels like.” I’ve internalized that advice, and now regularly give to photographers that I work with, but this is something that no editor needed to tell Diego. It’s what he’s done here so magnificently — shown us what it feels like to live in modern Lebanon. -Craig Allen, Senior Photo Editor, International Desk, The New York Times for LensCulture Favorite photobooks 2022. The Phoenician Collapse is an intimate view inside of the complex Lebanese social fabric through the eyes of the Spanish photographer, Diego Ibarra Sánchez who documented the life and death there for six years. The book includes photographs, personal notes and artifacts from the glory times of the Phoenician to its fall. The book is bi-lingual in English and Spanish.