Shadow of the Sun
Published on 25. October 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
192 pages
978-1-913043-36-0 (ISBN)
Description
Impoverished Egyptian teacher Helmy is deperate to find a better life for himself, his wife and little boy, seeing no future at home in Cairo. He dreams of working in oil-rich Kuwait and its boom in construction being the answer, just like many thousands before him. He manages to borrow the huge cost of a visa and is at last on his way to Kuwait City.
He has no idea of the nightmare, instead of the dream, that awaits him - the relentless summer sun with temperatures of 56?C and more, the choking dust and sweat, having to do construction work instead of teaching. And always, no money, and no answers from the many managers Helmy comes up against. Instead of achieving his dream, he falls into trap after trap. The author is himself a character in the novel, an engineer with the construction company who is writing a story about the humiliating and degrading experiences of the migrant foreign workers arriving in Kuwait to make their fortunes.
He has no idea of the nightmare, instead of the dream, that awaits him - the relentless summer sun with temperatures of 56?C and more, the choking dust and sweat, having to do construction work instead of teaching. And always, no money, and no answers from the many managers Helmy comes up against. Instead of achieving his dream, he falls into trap after trap. The author is himself a character in the novel, an engineer with the construction company who is writing a story about the humiliating and degrading experiences of the migrant foreign workers arriving in Kuwait to make their fortunes.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Banipal Books
Dimensions
Height: 129 mm
Width: 198 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
178 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-913043-36-0 (9781913043360)
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Persons
Taleb Alrefai is a well-known Kuwaiti author. Shadow of the Sun (Dhil al-Shams), was his first novel, published in 2000, with a second edition in 2012. centred on the suffering of Egyptian and other foreign migrant workers in Kuwait. In 2002, he was awarded the State Prize for Letters for his novel Ra'ihat al-Bahr (Scent of the Sea). His novel Fi al-Huna (Here and There) was longlisted for the 2016 International Prize for Arabic Fiction and has a French edition. His novel Al-Najdi (2017, The Mariner) based on the life of a famous Kuwaiti sea captain, has editions in English (Banipal Books, 2020, with an audio edition (Spiracle, 2022), French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese and Turkish. Nashwa Nasreldin is a writer, editor, and translator of Arabic literature. She is the translator of the 2014 Sheikh Zayed Book Award-winning novel, After Coffee, by Abdelrashid Mahmoudi, which was a Fiction finalist in the 2019 International Book awards. Her book translations include the collaborative novel by nine refugee writers, Shatila Stories, and a co-translation of Samar Yazbek's memoir, The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of Syria. She has translated numerous short stories, which have appeared in journals including The Common, Words Without Borders, and ArabLit Quarterly. A former current affairs documentary producer and journalist, Nashwa has reported on stories from around the Middle East and North Africa. In January 2011 she travelled to Tunisia as the Assistant Producer on the Rageh Omaar Al Jazeera documentary, The Death of Fear, which traced the roots and repercussions of the uprising. During the first year of the Arab uprisings, she was based at the Middle East headquarters of Agence France Presse, covering the breakout of subsequent demonstrations from Syria to Libya. In her personal documentary, Class of 1990, which broadcast on the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Kuwait, she reunited with former classmates, the country of her birth, to find out what happened to her friends - and their school - during the war that separated them. She holds an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and her poems have appeared in a number of literary journals in the UK and further afield. As well as translating and writing poetry, Nashwa writes feature articles and reviews for literary and cultural publications.