The weepers - Aqil Al-Moussawi

She felt it with her feminine instinct, coming and going between the library and the lecture hall, she glimpsed in his gazes infatuation, the same Gatsby gaze directed at his beloved Daisy in the novel "The Great Gatsby." She knew he was Arab, and she imagined him a descendant of bygone sultans, and the gap in his upper tooth suggested past mischief. She deliberately laughed near him to arouse his interest, and he was ready to say something, then hesitated and retreated with his tongue. She enjoyed his matter as entertainment, and when he failed to say anything, she felt annoyed, sometimes humiliated, and she floundered in her doubts, even hated him, to the point that she thought of a way to humiliate him.***This is not a historical novel, but perhaps it is against history, and yet, it is based on history, on a tragic history that has become a distant event, now a daily occurrence due to its overwhelming presence. A novel where the tragedy of blood and the overflowing tears in the eyes meet with passionate romantic love, and its events cascade from the heart of old Manama, from its rich memory of everything, from the stories of its people, their dreams, frustrations, and struggles. It is a novel packed with many characters whom you feel you know individually due to their familiar realism, rich in social, political, and ritual details, and concerned with the story of a very traditional society, which suddenly explodes with a religious revolution erupting nearby. Time moves back and forth in the novel between the past and the present, between politics and society, between religious customs and love, weaving the destinies of three generations with conflicting ideas, desires, and tendencies, generations differing in everything, united only by tears and quick-flowing tears. Takhween Publications