«المنسيون بين ماءين».. غرقنا ولا نريد الصعود - إبراهيم عبدالمجيد -“The Forgotten Between Two Waters” … We Drown, and We Do Not Wish to Rise
الروائي إبراهيم عبدالمجيد
“The Forgotten Between Two Waters” … We Drown, and We Do Not Wish to Rise
16 January 2025
By Ibrahim Abdelmeguid
A few days ago, I read this remarkable novel by the Bahraini writer Laila Al-Mutawa. The novel was published by the Saudi publishing house Dar Rashm, in 432 medium-sized pages.
Before delving into the novel itself, I would like to point out that today there are dozens of accomplished Arab women writers enriching our literary life with their novels, poetry, and critical essays. The term “feminist writing” no longer holds the simple meaning of writing about women and their struggles in this world—a meaning often trivialized into the shallow idea that it is simply “writing by women.” The true meaning remains the first one, regardless of whether it is written by men or women.
Here we are faced with a highly ambitious novel, one that must have cost its author many years of gathering material, which she has transformed into a magnificent narrative that verges on an epic—an epic of the relationship between human beings, the sea, and history in Bahrain and its surrounding waters.
The novel’s characters, whether real or mythical—Salima, Nadia, Iya Nasser, Inanna, along with grandmothers and mothers—move through different narrative voices, alternating between first and third person. The author masterfully shifts among them to weave her epic; this is the least that can be said about the novel.
The sea and the land of Bahrain are the source of all tales and events, spanning from enchanting or magical memories to the present reality of cities built on reclaimed land. To the reader, the text may seem effortless, yet the novel is laden with stories and myths: of grandmothers, fishing, freshwater springs, and mermaids who ensnared fishermen—treasures of both individual and collective memory.
The sea is the lost protagonist, never erased from memory, suspended between saltwater and freshwater. Just as once there was diving for pearls, here there is a dive into the past, searching for the pearls of memory and story, arriving at the days of land reclamation and the expansion of the shore.
The stories of its characters—such as Nadia and her grandmother’s tales—embody not only memory but also the fears, daily rituals, and magical or religious practices that still rise with the movement of the waves. For land does not erase the past that inhabits the soul.
What lies hidden, thanks to the mastery of art, vision, and storytelling, is the unending conflict between humankind and nature. However much humans prevail over nature, the stories never fade. Palm trees, seagulls, ships, fishermen, and elders remain bound to the wonder evoked by the novel’s enchantment, and to the realization of how many texts—since the Assyrian myths, through poetry, folklore, and song—have been written about the sea. What the novel creates is a lament for the sea, at the very least reviving rituals and offerings once cast into the waters to protect a newborn child, among countless other details.
In this way, the book achieves an advanced level of experimentation, merging all of these strands into a dazzling narrative fabric.
The Forgotten Between Two Waters is a new novel by the Bahraini Laila Al-Mutawa that is not only a production, but a renewal in form and style. It stands apart in its treatment of the sea, its cultural specificity, its rituals, and the modes of life it has shaped. Each character could deserve a separate essay, poised between reality and myth, narrated in ways that never weary the reader.
It is, in essence, a novel of Bahrain across six thousand years, blending reality and imagination so seamlessly that one cannot distinguish between them. Bahrain, with all the upheavals and transformations in its life, beliefs, and traditions, is portrayed with loyalty to place, highlighting the eras through stories that still dwell in minds and souls.
I do not hesitate to call this novel a timeless epic. For my part, I drowned in it and did not wish to emerge, even after finishing it in three days, so overwhelming was its beauty. And surely, this will be the experience of every reader.
تعليقات
إرسال تعليق