Waada: Part One

About this book

Between the silence of ancient tombs and the din of university halls, Marwan El-Alan weaves in his novel "Waada" a tale unlike tales, a tale beginning when "Hakim Aref" - the academic who spent his life among civilizations' ruins and the philosophy of arts - decides to cast off the robe of falseness and face the naked truth. Hakim, who inherited from his father a passion years of estrangement and displacement did not cure, finds himself facing existence's greatest question: are we mere stones in time's wall, or are we the beings that grant this time its meaning? On the other side, "Waada El-Husseini" shines like a torch in a long night's darkness, a woman carrying in her soul a legacy of thousands of years of oppression and waiting, searching for "the wise one" who will undo her shackles and grant her body and soul the right to desire and life. Their meeting was no mere passing coincidence, but a small cosmic explosion that rearranged the world's priorities for them; so they left behind the city's din and the jobs of illusory stability, heading toward the earth.. toward the soil awaiting their fingers to divulge its secrets. The novel progresses from the mystery of the philosophical questions posed by "the knower of God, El-Fadl El-Tijani" to the inspiration of the human experience created by Waada and Hakim as they build their house and plant their trees far from ready-made molds. "Waada" is an intense journey toward the self, and an invitation to rebel against "the thread of smoke" we all chase, to discover in the end that we are the question, and we are the answer, and we are the light filling existence's darkness.