Omnia Salah, Kaf Al-Masih (Palm of the Christ), Al-Ain Publishing House, 2023, pp272
An authoritarian grandmother overpowers a granddaughter suffering from a guilt trauma in the belief that she was the reason for her mother’s death. The girl has very low self-esteem and so falls into the trap of her grandmother’s control due to her submissive nature and negativity. As the incidents unravel, the girl embarks on a journey of recovery and tries to free herself of her complexes. With the help of her knowledge of the real motives behind her grandmother’s controlling behaviour she comes to believe in an old prophecy – a palm reading – that summed up the family’s entire future; it was the grandmother who was subconsciously fulfilling the prophecy. The girl eventually finds relief with the help of a family friend, Father Daniel.
Omnia Salah is a writer from Alexandria who earned her PhD degree in Coptic Art and Antiquities from the Institute of Coptic Research and Studies at Alexandria University. She published a novel, Al-Milad (Birth) in 2017 with Atlas Publishing House and a collection of short stories, Wadaatha Ontha (She Gave Birth to a Female) in 2018 with Al-Yasmine Publishing House.
Belal Hosni, Kaakeit Al-Homar Al-Wahshy (Zebra Cake), Bila Defaf Series – Al-Kotob Khan Publishing House, 2023, pp228
The narrator of this novel takes three short trips within the city of Alexandria. He visits familiar haunts, but it seems like a lifetime since he last saw them as his eyes make out the cratered walls, and he has the sense that this is the end of an era and perhaps the beginning of a new one. As he scans his city through the shattered windows of semi-demolished houses in the old neighbourhoods, awakening to the sound of hammers and bulldozers erasing memories and deforming the familiar neighbourhood, aware of the industrial zones on the outskirts of the city, he surveys the trains and old tramway coaches and horse-drawn carriages, meeting unemployed labourers, devious businessmen, shopkeepers guarding unsold goods and naughty children amid the ruins. In this work of autofiction, Belal Hosni takes the liberty of writing outside traditional narrative forms, mixing vernacular and formal Arabic.
Belal Hosni is a novelist, screenwriter, photographer and filmmaker with a number of short films to his name. He has published work in Amkena Magazine, The Sultan’s Seal weblog, Merit Cultural Magazine and Mada Masr. He collaborated with Massar Egbari on the lyrics of one of their songs in 2013. Kaakeit Al-Homar Al-Wahshi is his first novel.
Reem Bassiouny, Mario wa Abu Al-Abbas, Nahdet Masr Publishing House, 2023, pp226