BOOKS
Contrary to the Above
SHORTLISTED FOR THE KATARA PRIZE FOR ARABIC NOVEL 2026 & BY NAGUIB MAHFOUZ MEDAL FOR LITERATURE WINNER EZZAT AL-KAMHAWI.
After spending over two months locked inside his Cairo apartment in deep fear of state surveillance, Sami Yaqoub-a young man cursed with the ability to foresee events before they happen-is summoned by the ghost of a murdered boy to inherit a forgotten orchard in the countryside. Escaping the claustrophobic anxiety of the capital for this lush, hidden sanctuary, Sami begins rebuilding an abandoned villa and tending to a farm, living peacefully alongside nature, the living, and the gentle specters of his family. Fusing magical realism with philosophical contemplation, Ezzat Al-Kamhawi crafts a breathtakingly serene, meditative masterpiece about healing from collective trauma, the unity of existence, and a nation caught between its unresolved past and uncertain present.
Ezzat Al-Kamhawi
An acclaimed Egyptian novelist, journalist. A graduate of the Department of Journalism at Cairo University, Al-Kamhawi is recognized as one of the most distinguished, contemplative, and aesthetically refined voices in contemporary Arabic literature. He is the recipient of the prestigious Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature (2012) for his landmark historical novel House of the Wolf (Bayt Al-Deeb). Renowned for his poetic prose, sensory richness, and philosophical excavations of time, memory, sleep, and spatial aesthetics, his major works include The City of Pleasure, A Small Sky, The Book of Sleep, Sea Room, and Contrary to What Came Before. His writings have been translated into English, Italian, and Chinese.
FEATURED BOOKS
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Years of Freckles
