When we do not love, we don't know how to do any work, nor do we enjoy anything we do. Love is what—sometimes—brings us out of the circle of darkness into the circle of light. Therefore, 'A Woman's Illusion' represents the emotions I sometimes escape to, to find myself without any questions. This is how Huda Al-Khuwairi wants the rhythm of her words to present her new poetry collection, 'A Woman's Illusion,' as an eternal hymn of love, bustling with the meanings of captivating affection. She has written its lines with words steeped in transparency and glow, and with inner references that create successive images to express a feminine self with its own special worlds. The poet has brought it out into the space of poetic consciousness, with a language charged with intimate connotations.

To appreciate Huda Al-Khuwairi's poetry and her flowing emotion, it is enough to read her poem titled 'The Ache,' in which she says: 'I confess that no one rivals you within me except you, and no one occupies your place but you, and no one spreads across my feelings other than you. And I confess that I do not know my place with you, nor do I know what I am to you. I wish I could slip inside you, to find myself in you and settle down. And I wish I knew the extent to which you place me. And I wish I knew if I have captured the core of your heart or not. I confess that you have hurt me enough and that you remain as you are within me even if we do not meet. Just be well and smile—as I told you—and I will look for you where you have settled in my depths.' With this language laden with reproach, nostalgia, the past, and memories, the poet sends the stillness of her sorrows to a lover she has lost, who nevertheless resides in her depths. She openly reveals her inner self, using the first-person perspective to broadcast the messages of the self and soar with them far into the space of poetry.

The collection 'A Woman's Illusion' includes twenty prose texts under the following titles:

• Delirium
• Remains
• Journey
• Illusion
• Burns
• Corners
• Choice
• Forgetfulness
• Silence
• Female
• Confessions
• Tales
• Resemblance
• Truth
• The Warmth of Love
• A Moment of Joy
• Absence
• The Ache
• Another Flavor

Author: Huda Al-Khuwairi
Publisher: Arab Scientific Publishers-Beirut
Year of Publication: 2014
Pages: 99
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 9786140112469