صلاة القلق

Novel - January 7, 2025 A village planted in oblivion, its foundations were shaken by a mysterious explosion of an unknown object in 1977, and it suddenly turned into a tightly sealed box in which every villager lives his own saga: oppressed rebels demand freedom and tyrannical tyrants tighten their grip on lives and necks. But the narrative thread only advances to take us back. The novel sheds light on a harsh decade that extends from the setback of June 1967 to the moment of the explosion and the faces of the villagers turned into turtles. One event in “Al-Naja” is narrated by eight different characters, whose narrations form the mosaic of the story in a charming formation. The bottom of the novel is a narrative questioning of the setback and the illusions of sovereignty and victory that followed. Who writes the true history: the boots, the rifle, and the iron chains, or the never-dying cries of rebellion? What does 1977 awaken in us? The death of meaning and art, or the futility of fate and false peace? Isn’t the village of “Al-Manasi” a major metaphor for a generation of distorted people? Whatever the answer, “The Prayer of Anxiety” must be gathered together in one thread: the dispersion of significance and the strength of the plot.