Bread on Uncle Milad's table

Author's name: Muhammad Al-Naas

Shortlist for the 2022 International Booker Prize for Best Novel

In his closed village community, Milad Al-Usta searches for the ideal definition of manhood as seen by his society. He fails throughout his life to be a man after many attempts, so he decides to be himself and forget this definition after meeting his lover and future wife, Zainab. He lives his days inside the house, taking on roles that society has assigned to women, while his lover works to support the household, and thus they reverse social roles.
Milad remains oblivious to the fact that his society is mocking him until his cousin reveals to him what is happening around him.
The novel deals with the village community's different definitions of manhood, but it maintains one definition of the anti-man or "non-man" of which the birth of the master is a symbol.
This novel re-questions preconceived notions of gender and condemns the stereotypes that confine the roles of both men and women to specific frameworks, beyond which one is deemed to have crossed the line. It is a novel of individual triumph over deadly collective ideas, and a novel of triumph for the human experience over all fixed descriptions.