The convicted section

Translation: Ahmed Haidari Number of pages: 303 The novel begins with a sentence that reveals the worlds the reader will enter: "In Lacan prison, there are stories like the tales of One Thousand and One Nights. Perhaps a thousand of them are believable, but this one will not be: one night, a man opened the door of the condemned section, then threw a girl inside." The reader may wonder what crime this girl committed to be thrown into a men's prison? Was this reality or imagination? What is her fate with two hundred and fifty prisoners, distributed across twenty-five cells? "Zapata" is the name by which the imprisoned narrator is known, a drug addict, and his role in the prison is that of a male Scheherazade; he distorts the prisoners' stories into comedy so they can enjoy them while they are high, in exchange for cigarettes and hashish. He narrates the story of a girl entering and staying with them for a whole day, and within her story, lives, love, crime, and imprisonment of fifteen main prisoners in the novel are woven. It is an evocation of Arab nights and their succession of stories. The author of this novel experienced prison himself, and his novel received several literary awards. Critics discussed it in many critical texts, and readers embraced it, edition after edition. However, it was banned after reaching its eleventh edition.