Dinner with Aisha

Author's name: Muhammad Al-Mansi Qandil

It's not an ordinary dinner. It's a first date between a shy young man and an intrusive girl. It doesn't end like any other romantic date, but rather turns into a strange experience that lies on the border between reality and nightmare. It's one of the many stories contained in this book, each one a different experience in writing and in the degree of feeling of reality and the human pain it contains. There are moments of sad love and joy of life, and there is a feeling of nostalgia and missing loved ones. The stories never cease to roam the place, from the farthest villages in Upper Egypt where those seeking revenge hide, to the heart of Asia where extremely cruel rituals are practiced to stimulate sexual powers, and wandering through time as the events continue from Pharaonic Egypt to the fears of contemporary reality. All the stories share a narrative style that reveals the purity of language and the magic of words, presented by a writer who possesses one of the sweetest styles in Arabic narrative.