Ayoub - New Edition

Hachette Antoine, under the Noufal imprint, exclusively publishes the works of Mikhail Naimy, one of the most prominent contemporary Arab writers and Lebanese diaspora writers. His writings are characterized by their attempts to purify Arabic literature of embellishments and superfluous language, and to draw closer to depicting the reality of things and events. His style is characterized by simplicity, clarity, and frankness, and avoids exaggeration, especially in description, narration, and imagery. His vocabulary sometimes seems closer to the colloquial dialect, which increases the desire of readers of all ages to read his books. Naimy takes the story of Job in the Torah as a means to dramatize his intellectual convictions on the subject of pain. He once said in one of his collections of proverbs, "Your enemy is a friend disguised as an enemy."
How can pain, humanity's worst enemy, be a friend in disguise? This is a question Na'imah sought to answer not through analysis, reasoning, or proof, but rather through representation, embodiment, and actualization on stage. Hence this four-act play. Na'imah here does not merely repeat the story in the biblical Book of Job about one of the greatest afflicted sufferers in human history, but rather takes it from there to where it becomes clear to the viewer, up close, that there is no escape from pain like pain for the sufferer. This is because once we understand pain, it transforms within us—like the pangs of a woman in labor—into a herald of a new birth. A collection of articles and short stories, in which Naimy addresses, in his distinctive writing style and luminous contemplative disposition, the human existential and social issues in his relationship with himself and life, within a context of luminous mind and deep contemplation, an outstanding language, and a unique and interesting style, and this is why he's marked as a global thought leader and influencer.