The Swamp of Freedom

About this book

In a city called "Gladiya," do not search for truth behind prison bars or in politics' dark corridors, but search for it above the green rectangle, where football turns from a mere "game" into an opiate soothing the hungry's aches, and a "swamp" drowning whoever tries to see beyond the nets. The tale begins with "Salim," the young journalist for whom the ball was never mere inflated leather, but the scar left by the memory of his late father "Rashid"; that toiling worker a heart attack claimed in "the derby's" stands, leaving behind a family poverty gnaws and a mysterious secret that did not die with him. Salim finds himself driven by a pulse of a pen that knows no surrender, to breach silence's walls and confront "the Entity"; the club representing the sway of the rich, versus "Freedom," feeding on simple people's dreams. Between "the white board's" mystery and insane-asylums' secrets hiding behind their walls "minds that knew more than they should," conspiracy's threads tangle. Is football truly the refuge? Or is it the great lie made so the toilers do not raise their heads to the sky? "The Swamp of Freedom" is no novel about sports, but a human elegy about sacrifice, existence's struggle, and the search for freedom in a homeland selling illusions in bottles of fleeting joy. It is an invitation to ask yourself: are you a passionate fan.. or a mere pawn in a match whose rules were not written for you?