A Letter from Isolation

About this book

At the moment silence closes in on the world, and walls become friend and foe at once, words sprout from the heart of "isolation" unlike anything we are used to hearing. This book, "A Letter from Isolation" by poet Mohamed Marei, is no mere collection of Egyptian vernacular poetry, but a stifled scream and a human document searching for light in the darkness of solitude. Marei takes us on an emotional journey beginning in the steadfast alleys of Gaza, where "the brick is more honorable than the pen," reaching the labyrinths of the human psyche suffering "tears of helplessness." The book progresses in its candor; it begins with the mystery of a nostalgia that ambushes us "like worries at the feast," then rises to draw the features of steadfastness behind bars or behind the sealed doors of houses. It is a work posing the hardest existential question: how can an olive branch stay green in the hand of a dove flying over the rubble? Between the folds of the pages, you will find a struggle between a "blind" conscience trying to see, and an "anxious" heart fearing shards of reality might enter it. "A Letter from Isolation" is.