Ibrahim Naji.. a warm visit delayed

A long journey Samia Mahrez took since childhood in foreign schools in Cairo, where the government curricula, assigned to all students of the Republic, alienated her from Arabic literature, then in American universities where she began to reconcile with her roots, until she finally settled at the American University in Cairo to teach the same Arabic literature! One of the important stations in her journey was the great Romantic poet Ibrahim Naji, her maternal grandfather. She was born two years after his death and studied his poetry reluctantly in school and paid little attention to it until she inherited from her aunt some papers, including letters, personal diaries, and drafts of some of his most important poems, including the poem "Al-Atlal," and others literary translations and unfinished book projects in medicine, none of which anyone had seen before her. They shed light on unknown and obscured aspects of his life: his financial struggles, his battles with bureaucracy, and his romantic relationships, which his family always kept secret. The result was this intimate visit between the granddaughter, the critic, and the grandfather, the doctor and poet, hinting at the formation of a new relationship between them. A wonderful book representing an important addition to Samia Mahrez's previous writings in literary criticism and translation. — Saadallah Ibrahim