Circumambulating the palm tree

Author's name: Khaled Al-Nasrallah

A child imagined the river as a green carpet... so he fell into it.
From that moment, Tarafa begins his life's journey, pursued by a passion for discovery.
In an abandoned date press, a four-year-old boy finds a magical book, sparking his love of reading.
He learns to decode letters by himself, and amazes everyone with his intelligence, to the point that his peers gather around him to listen to his stories.
He sets off on his bicycle and tours Basra to snag a book, a magazine, or a stolen moment at the cinema.
But when illness threatens his father's sight, Tarfa trains to be his father's eyes, rushing to work early to secure an income. As his feelings of rejection and anger grow, he finds himself immersed in politics, leading street protests.
One poem he wrote was enough to push him straight into the heart of the storm…