They both agree to writing. Perhaps this is the main achievement of Bahr and Rawaia. Half Iraqi in France, and half Iraqi in Britain, they are in love. The vocalist, whose voice travels across capitals, loses her monthly habit due to age. The photographer becomes merely a voice on the recording machine receiving his missed calls as his lover intentionally doesn’t answer. Is the recorded voice of a burning man enriching? They write their diaries that separate them from one another. Yet, their writing surpasses their lamenting of love, loneliness, and desire. Their papers bring forth homes as they are remembered: a mother and grandmother, a dish of dried beans, and a coarse bathing loofah. Their ordinary complexes appear as well. Bahr finally understands the boredom that overtakes him... the boredom of a hunter. Rawaia discovers a crack in her apartment's wall, 'the thimble', and decides to track every hidden crevice, in the bathroom and the closet of the self. Alia Mamdouh is an Iraqi writer and novelist. She has written 'The Slave Woman' and 'The Loved Ones', which won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal and was translated into English.

• Publishing house: Dar Al Saqi
• Number of Pages: 224
• Year of publication: 2010