Balcony of shame

A new novel by the poet and novelist "Ibrahim Nasser Allah" was issued, titled "Shore of Shame," and it is the third novel within his novel project "Balconies," which includes a number of novels, each of which is completely independent of the others. As usual, Ibrahim Nasser Allah remains the best to express the contradictions of social life, the best critic, and the best to convey its images with extreme boldness and rarity through breaking the traditional novel structure. He is now addressing a current, highly sensitive, and simultaneously alarming issue: "Honor Crimes," victims of which are women who have been oppressed by family and society alike, helpless in the face of society’s harshness, customs, traditions, and canned cultural frameworks that want to make a girl a moving doll in the house of the family and the house of marriage at the same time. It is a balcony from which the novelist wanted to look at the reality that Arab women, especially those in the middle and poor classes, live through, by placing all his aesthetic, cognitive, and creative experiences into the character of "Manal," whom her father insisted on educating and provided her with the necessary support until she graduated and obtained a job as a social supervisor. At that moment, she found that the world, for her, suddenly seemed to have expanded. But? Suddenly, her life changes, and what is worse happens! "Suddenly, Younes opened the car door from outside, and in less than a second, Manal felt the cold blade of that dagger on her neck. 'I will kill you if you breathe!' (...) In front of the door of that small room, he paused for a moment, then pushed the door with his right foot, and it opened. They entered. He closed the door with his foot, and in a quick movement, lifted the dagger from her neck, pressed her back against the door, and returned the dagger to its place. With his free hand, he turned the key. At that moment, he was sure that his victim had lost all her strength, as she had lost her voice; her hands fell to her sides like two pieces of faded cloth on a clothesline. He dragged her toward that bed, lit that small red lamp, which he apparently prepared specifically for that moment, and under its heavy light, she could see the face of the human turning into the face of a monster." So, what happened after that? That is what we will discover together as we read this purposeful novel, which its author wanted to be a loud cry in the face of everyone who deprives women of their humanity, their right to live, choose, and defend themselves.