Mouna Bustros

A descendent of two prominent Lebanese families, Mouna Bustros, the eldest daughter of Fadlallah (Fady) Bustros and Marie (Mimi) Doumani was born on August 27, 1945.

She completed her primary and secondary education at the Fransisican School then the College Protestant (with honor grade “bien” on the French Baccalaureate), and earned a degree in Literature from the Faculte Francaise des Lettres.

Aged 21, she married Maurice Sehnaoui and gave birth to her only child Nicolas. She was divorced three years later.

Her grandmother Eveline Tueni Bustros developed in her an appreciation and love for arts and literature (Mouna would read one book a day), as well as a sense of social and civil duty.

In the sixties, she was active within the Social Movement with Mgr Gregoire Haddad. Among the Social Movement’s objectives were the preservation of traditional crafts and the promotion of citizenship and secularism in Lebanon.

In the seventies, she headed “Le Point” art gallery and organized several exhibitions in Europe on the contemporary Lebanese art. Despite the extremely challenging situation imposed by the war in Lebanon, Mouna coordinated and put together “Le Regard des Peintres”, an exhibition offering an thorough account of 200 years of Lebanese paintings. The exhibition toured in Paris and London.

Her civil activism includes co-organizing a blood donation rally in 1989 with the Lebanese Human Rights Association. The day-long event symbolized the will of Christians and Muslims to live side by side.

She was a main character in “Beirut, the Last Home Movie”, shot in Beirut in 1981. The film received the Best Film Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Mouna Boustros died on August 6, 1989 after a shell hit the house she had refused to leave and vowed to either protect or die in.