Najwa Sunset - 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 by its avoidance of 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.
Mikhail Naimy was eighty-four when "Sunset Whispers" was published, and he thought it would be his last work before his passing. This book, therefore, is strange in its form; it is neither prose as we are accustomed to prose writing, nor poetry as poetry is understood. Rather, from beginning to end, it is a single prayer, taking the form of a one-sided dialogue between the worshipper and his Lord, who remains eternally present, listening without responding.
Thus, Naim is able to offer his Lord, with the utmost humility, the utmost fervor of performance, and the utmost spontaneity, the essence of a lifetime of intellectual toil, spiritual struggle, emotional sensitivity, and penetrating, as much as possible, the world of space, from the temporal to the world beyond. Perhaps what best embodies the nature of this dialogue, in form and content, is His saying:
My child is me, my Lord,
And this land
The beautiful, the generous, the compassionate,
who put me in her arms
It's just the cradle
Include from him to you. Mikhail Naimy had turned eightyfour when this book was published, and he assumed it would be his last before passing. That's why it came out with this odd manifestation, as it's not contemplated as prose in the literal sense of the word, nor a poetry the way poetry is recognized. The book is a soliloquy prayer, through which Naimy permeates into the worlds he has always expressed himself through to his readers, with a graceful language and an intense emotional sense that carries away the reader beyond the material world, declaiming on the human's relationship with his brother, and his relationship with God, the universe and creation.