بياصة الشوام

“This short, condensed novel is like a hand grenade... Its author, Ahmed Al-Fakharani, belongs to the group of writers who are not content to describe or draw reality as it is, but rather reformulate it with the boldness of Picasso in his cubist works... This is what Al-Fakharani does as he shapes clay and cooks it with the fire of his imagination to produce his novelistic pottery. He does not present us with the Shawam countryside as it is, but rather reformulates it and inhabits it with creatures that are mythical, but they have an original origin. “Realistic.” Bahaa Jaheen “is a complex, multi-layered work, in which the real is mixed with the mythical, and inspiration from religious texts, with the magic of the Sufi experience... You can describe the text as essentially a spiritual experience, an internal struggle embodied in the form of a narrative maze, or a journey upward, an attempt to reach perfection, across a crumbling bridge of imperfection and betrayal... Therefore, “Bayas Al-Shawam” is an aesthetic experience, as much as it is a spiritual experience.” Mahmoud Abdel Shakour Ahmed Al-Fakharani; An Egyptian novelist and journalist, he published several novels and short story collections, many of which won prestigious awards, including; The novel “Bar Layalina,” which was longlisted for the Arab Booker Prize in 2023, “Bayasa Al-Shawam,” which won first place in the Sawiris Prize - Young Writers Branch in 2020, and the novel “Mandorla,” which won second place in 2016. He publishes his articles in Egyptian and Arab newspapers and websites.