Return of the spirit

It was never just a novel with some events taking place in a house filled with characters each with their own traits, nor was it a love story centered around that young, gentle neighbor and everything surrounding her, full of longing, passion, flirtation, and teasing. Rather, this novel written by the pioneer of romance, Tawfiq Al-Hakim, was a novel of an entire people represented by the individuals of a family that gathered in the same scene at its beginning and end. A people united by one thing, their spirits intertwined until they became one indivisible and inseparable entity. Just as the novel "Family" embodied the traits of the Egyptian people when they went through a crisis, as the nation experienced a laborious phase in 1919, a body was formed, and the spirit returned to it, encompassing all its members without exception. And just as the family merged with the people, everyone gathered around a single idol, as has been customary since the dawn of history. As we see in several scenes that traverse history and life, starting from the words and lines of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, and in the image of farmers in their blue robes like the sky around wheat sheaves, and even the faces of Egyptians gathered around their leader, Saad Zaghloul, always and in all scenes, everyone becomes one. They are united by the crisis, and the spirit reenters them anew when they see the divine. This wonderful work by Tawfiq Al-Hakim, which resides on the pages of this book, takes us to that historical period with its emotions, soaring us into broader heavens than just reading it as a historical event or a memory of days. Instead, it offers us a profound depiction of the Egyptian human being, embodied in an individual, a family, and a nation.