The house of the engineer - Huda Al-Tamimi

In "The House of the Hidden," Huda Al-Tamimi writes personal and intimate travel literature, but it begins from the closest point possible: the house. Before airports, before distant cities, there is "the Hidden" in Unaizah – the large family house, the smell of fresh local eggs, the sound of roosters at dawn, summer sleep on the roof under the stars. The house that is not called "Grandpa Ibrahim’s house" but "the Hidden"; because the house itself was nestled among greenery, the garden, the fruits, the pathways, and the birds. This place is not just a childhood backdrop, but the origin of the whole idea: that place becomes meaning, and that family becomes the root of the relationship with the world. From the first page, the book tells you: we will travel, yes, but we will travel with the eyes of someone who believes that the most beautiful journeys start from within. The book is written as successive portraits of places and people: an old house in Lebanon, an ancient café in Cairo, a alley in Lisbon, a small inn in downtown, and even a girl you don’t know in a café in Unaizah who shares the table with you, and you meet again after a year as if you were old friends. These are not tourist scenes; they are not "travel tips" nor "top 10 places to visit." Tamimi does not write travel guides, but relationships. Every station is a feeling captured, the warmth of a cup of tea in a moment of cold, a lemon tree in a rural houseyard, an elderly hand explaining the history of her village in a dialect that is not your own, but you understand it because warmth is understood in all languages. The bet is clear: the world, in reality, is not maps and borders, but people who open their seats and their memories to you. The style of the book is an essential part of the experience. Huda Tamimi writes as if she is sitting with you in the family gathering after lunch and says: "Let me tell you a story." The language is very transparent, sometimes colloquial, always honest, without arrogance, without trying to theorize or "beautify" the experience. It is also meticulous, obsessed with details: the color of the tiles, the texture of the wood, the sound of the minaret, the name of a dish in a distant oasis. These small details are what transform the scene from a mere travel description into a full moment of living. "The House of the Hidden" is a nostalgic book, but not tearful, and a lively book, but not ostentatious. It will be loved by the traveler who has traveled a lot, and the reader who has never left his city will breathe with it. Because the real question it leaves you with is: how many times have you passed by an ordinary place and said "It’s not important," while that place itself was waiting to become a story? And how many houses – your house, your grandmother’s house, or even your aunt’s house – deserve to be written about before they change, are demolished, or their mark fades? This kind of book is not just read; it pushes you to open your own memory. Do you have a special "hidden house" in your life?