LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC FICTION 2025 & BY SAWIRIS AWARD WINNER HASAN KAMAL. When Salma, a conservative Egyptian woman approaching forty, uncovers her husband’s repeated infidelities and watches her spiritual mentor recant his beliefs, her world completely shatters. Reevaluating her entire existence, she embarks on a radical journey toward self-liberation by pursuing her long-suppressed dream of becoming a writer. Guided by “Rima”-a mysterious, imaginary alter ego who directs her actions-Salma begins transforming her real-life confrontations into the pages of a novel. Fusing fast-paced psychological suspense with a biting critique of the modern publishing industry and the superficiality of literary bestsellers, Hasan Kamal delivers a brilliant, multi-layered excavation of female agency and religious hypocrisy. The Stolen Novel is an unsparing, intensely engaging confrontation with memory, identity, and the price of reclaiming one’s narrative in a deceptive world.