Small Bread

About this book

In an isolated, faraway place where the bustle of cities fades into cruel silence sits Ezz El-Din, the teacher whose waiting has been long, breathing only in the village's single café. After leaving behind a city life he could no longer bear—a life in which disappointments and problems with landlords chased him, and the wounds of losing both parents within one month accumulated—his escape was nothing but a desperate attempt to break free from everything, even from his memories. Ezz El-Din finds himself alone in a school consisting of a single classroom, besieged by solitude, which creeps into him through the gusts of wind striking the windows of the empty classroom at night. Solitude here is not merely the absence of people, but a killing entity attacking him from every side, pushing him to think about all his past and what he suffers. But solitude is not absolute emptiness. In the stillness of the village square, another life takes shape. Ezz El-Din finds his respite in the stories he writes, igniting his imagination with the adventures of Mubarak the truck driver who visits him every Sunday, or with the tales of his students who refuse to send their daughters to school. And he watches from afar other lives.