The treasury, a novel of love and freedom

Author's name: Ismat Mansour Publisher: Tabaq for Publishing and Distribution Year of publication: 2022 Literary classification: Novel Summary of the book: This novel has dominance over the reader, placing them between the walls of the prison known as the Treasury, due to its strong fortifications, to experience daily, delicate, and highly sensitive details with its characters—those who spend their lives in occupation prisons, and the novel captures their vivid images. I can also say that the appeal of the novel lies in the conflict of will—the war of minds between the detainee and the jailer—in transforming the ordinary and daily into tools that its heroes utilize to surpass the confines of the detention and touch freedom, without exaggerating the novel in glorifying the experience or heroizing its characters, but rather with a clever spontaneity where simple events develop until they reach their climax in digging the tunnel to escape from the prison. With its publication, Ismat Mansour presents a literary work as something on the shelf of freedom literature, offering a new text that rivals what cinema has presented in works like "Escape from Pretoria" and "The Shawshank Redemption," among other exciting films. Yes, this is a novel full of excitement, in which Ismat Mansour leverages his experience as a prisoner who spent nearly twenty years in detention, without making the story his personal tale or a biography. The reader has the right to reject categorizing this novel as prison literature or as a love story, despite its events taking place within the prison walls, and despite the incidents of hunger strikes and digging tunnels to escape. That is because the love story shines in the novel like a fleeting lightning bolt over the walls.