The covenant of Damiana

The palm trunk that was tied to his body rose towards the sky. A sinful man burdened with shame, he does not seek salvation for himself or others. He gazes from above his cross at a land he wished to see the footprints of his feet on, but his feet are suspended in the air, and a sky above him where he has no place, after he has become cursed in the eyes of everyone—Muslims, Christians, Sunnis, Shia, Romans, and Copts. He lived his life wearing a garment of doubt, and today he dies with one certainty: that life is meaningless and not worth living, and that man in this life is like a shadow’s illusion—so is there any trace of an illusion? This novel is not just a text narrating a critical period in Egypt’s history, characterized by national, sectarian, and racial conflict at the end of the Fatimid state, but a comprehensive human experience searching for identity among dozens of affiliations that divide. A new journey by writer Osama Abdel Raouf El-Shazly about concepts of identity, homeland, and belonging, and a new story from pages of the past casting its shadow on the present. Number of pages: 400 Author: Osama El-Shazly Publisher: Dar Al-Riwaq