On 15 September 1990, Karim, the protagonist, and a group of Egyptian expats decide to risk a desert journey toward Iraq in the hope of reaching Jordan, where they could find a way back to Egypt.
The decision to take this risk came weeks after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which started on 2 August and turned the lives of Kuwaitis and Egyptians living in Kuwait upside down.
They had no clear vision for the future, especially as Saddam Hussein decided to annex the smaller neighbour as the 19th Iraqi governorate.
These tense days and anxious nights, from the invasion until the desperate desert escape, are the subject of El-Heini’s debut novel, Ayyam Al-Horoub: Al-Kuwait-Al-Qahera 1990 (The Days of Escape: Kuwait-Cairo, 1990).
The 500-page novel is largely based on El-Heini’s own experience of escaping Kuwait during the early weeks of the occupation, before the US-led war in January 1991 that forced Iraqi troops to withdraw in February of the same year.
“It is 80 percent based on personal experience; I used my own story for the details of the lead couple of the novel, Karim and his wife Nevine,” El-Heini told Ahram Online.
At the time of the invasion, El-Heini was working as an economist in Kuwait. He recalls going to bed one night and waking to “shocking, unbelievable news” that Iraq had invaded.
“It felt absurd,” he said. “When my wife woke me up with the news, I even asked if it was April Fools’ Day, but I knew it was August because you cannot miss the heat in Kuwait City.”
For Karim, who had just received his mother-in-law on the eve of the invasion, and other characters — Egyptians who had built their lives in Kuwait — the invasion came out of nowhere.
“When I look back at what happened 35 years ago, I still cannot get over the fact that this was perhaps one of the most shocking moments in the history of Arab relations,” he said.
“For Egyptians and other Arab expats in Kuwait, this was a war that literally hit home,” he added.
While the novel captures the broader political drama of the time, it is primarily a close examination of how war ravages ordinary lives.
“We often think of wars in military terms. But in 1990, before the age of digital media, the world could not easily see how this war affected everyday people, including those helpless Iraqi boys who were dragged into a war that made no sense to them,” El-Heini said.
He contrasted that moment with today, when the world sees the human cost of war in Gaza through constant images and videos.
In the novel, El-Heini shares intimate, emotional scenes: terrified mothers holding their babies, or those still pregnant, as Iraqi soldiers bang on their doors at night, only to discover that the soldiers were just hungry and looking for food.
The book also explores how war forces people to make decisions they would never have imagined: cautious individuals take risks, opportunists compromise, and the lonely find love.
“This was not just a war at the borders; it was a war that came to people’s doorsteps and tested everything,” El-Heini said.
Years after escaping Kuwait with his pregnant wife and young daughter, El-Heini decided to write down his experience. As an economist, he had never imagined becoming an author, though he had always had an interest in writing.
“Writing always came naturally to me, but I usually did it for a specific purpose, mostly work-related,” he said. “Then, one day, between jobs, I was invited to attend a fiction-writing workshop.”
What began as a short-story assignment evolved into his first novel, about one of the most unsettling episodes in modern Arab history of the 21st century.
With a manuscript of over 500 pages and no experience navigating the publishing world, El-Heini eventually connected with AlRewaq Publishing, which released the book earlier this year.
He says there is still much to tell about that time. While he is unsure about writing a sequel on the same subject, he is certain that this novel marks the start of a late but meaningful writing journey.
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