A Very Old Friend

Author: Ibrahim Aslan

In his latest novel, Ibrahim Aslan takes us on an astonishing journey where the personal intertwines with the imaginary, presenting a magnificent text that possesses all the artistic and stylistic characteristics established by the writing of the author of "The Heron," deeply ingrained in Arab narrative. As usual, Aslan begins with a fleeting moment and, with the hand of a master craftsman, transforms it into a vast world brimming with details. From the search for the name of an old friend lost in the dust of forgotten papers and abandoned by maps, the search begins, and the journey of evocation takes shape; the evocation of a vanished existence whose original protagonists left behind barely clinging names that stubbornly refused to leave memory. Thus, in "A Very Old Friend," Aslan embarks on a feverish search, supported by a memory still confident in its ability not only to recover a vanished world but also to restore it, so that it rises fully embodied as if it had never been separated from its owner.