BOOKS
Various Ways to Kill Ants
BY EGYPTIAN STATE ENCOURAGEMENT PRIZE WINNER & SAWIRIS-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR MOHAMED EL-FOULI.
Wahid is a third-grader with an extraordinary, language-driven lens on the world. To him, reality is a bizarre mix of simple loves-Ismaily mangoes, wrestler John Cena, and the mechanics of Arabic grammar-and painful truths, including an abusive household, a hatred for math, and a relentless war against “cursed” black ants. Through a unique, child-like philosophy, he dissects a domestic reality that feels like a nightmare in disguise. Various Ways to Kill Ants is a haunting piece of dark comedy where innocence and trauma collide. Guided by a narrator who knows too much and too little at once, Mohamed El-Fouli crafts a brilliant, deeply moving story where the battle against tiny ants becomes a poignant metaphor for childhood survival amidst domestic brutality.
Mohamed El Fouly
Mohamed El Fouly is an Egyptian writer and a highly accomplished translator specializing in Spanish literature. Working as an editor and correspondent for the Spanish news agency (EFE), his deep immersion in Latin American and Spanish letters—translating over thirty works—has profoundly shaped his original fiction, imbuing it with sharp irony, magical realism, and narrative trickery. He won the Jaber Asfour Translation Award from the National Translation Center for his translation of Carmen Mola’s The Beast. As a novelist, his works like Al-Laila Al-Kabeera (The Big Night)-which brilliantly narrates a UFO landing in a popular Egyptian neighborhood-and Turuq Mutanawi’a Li Qatl Al-Naml (Various Ways to Kill Ants), reveal a highly inventive, satirical voice that constantly surprises the reader.
FEATURED BOOKS
Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborumExcepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident.
Years of Freckles
