• Author: Baraa Shalash
• Publisher: Fadaat Publishing
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Number of Pages: 280
• Subject: Novels
• Edition: First
• Size: 14*22 cm
• Language: Arabic

It's not easy to escape the magic of its worlds once you start perusing the first pages of this novel. With every page you turn, new questions open up in your mind, and worlds of wonder unfold that you may not understand where they lead. Laughter mixes with a strange lump in your throat, which you might discover has always been there, hanging in a corner of your involuntary cowardice. You smile as you ask the last questions: how can this narrator—child, teenager, smart, stupid, capable, stuttering, rude, shy—expose what you have always been silent about? And say what you haven't even told your mirrors? Will he delve deeper into revealing what is hidden? Or will he take refuge in a cowardice that resembles yours, hiding behind roundabout words and evasive meanings?

Laughter that resembles crying, and crying drowned in laughter, with a rare narrative intelligence that Baraa Shalash masters with the cunning of a knowledgeable expert. A different kind of novel, stripped of all the logic of the usual or expected social mindset, creating its own reality that may seem crazy, rude, sarcastic, and painful at the same time.

Review by: Jihad Abu Hasheesh