Stone and shadows

Author: Burhan Sonmez Category: Novel Publisher: Kalemat (Dubai) Cover Type: Hardcover Publication Year: 2023 Number of Pages: 422 About the Book: The novel "The Stone and Shadows," by Turkish writer Burhan Sonmez, published in its Arabic version by Dar Rawaya in its first edition in 2023, translated by Safwan Al-Shalabi, takes the reader to strange worlds and realms, perhaps rarely explored, where silence prevails and the night is heavy despite the lights. It is a world of death and life in cemeteries, where graves, although occupying prominent places in the geography of cities and villages, seem isolated. No one wants to mention them, neither with good nor evil; they are something left unsaid. We only visit loved ones or fulfill our duty of visiting, but otherwise, people prefer silence about them, as if there is an agreement, because they remind us of death. The narration asks: do those cemeteries have inhabitants other than the dead? The answer is yes. They are the guardians of the graves, living among stone and shadows, referring to tombstones and the illusions resulting from preconceived notions about the dead in myths that have inhabited human minds—sometimes appearing as shadows or distant ghosts, perhaps so that no one forgets them, or to confirm that they once filled ears and eyes. These imagined shadows are traces of a life that once was.