Love in the new century

Author's name: Tsan Shiihdar Publisher: Mamdouh Adwan for Publishing and Distribution Year of publication: 2021 Literary classification: Novel Brief about the book: The characters of this novel search for a different life, so some leave their work in the cotton factory and turn into sex workers in the hot springs resort, while one of them voluntarily goes to prison seeking tranquility, and a third goes to her hometown discovering strange caves and tunnels, while a fourth chooses refuge in a rural province where Chinese herbs used in traditional medicine are found. These characters are intertwined in multiple emotional and physical relationships, as each one seems to be a mirror for the other, with each story beginning where the previous one stopped, in a flowing temporal structure. In this novel, which reached the longlist of the International Booker Prize in 2019, "Tsan Shiih" writes about the meaning of life in relation to love, sex, hometown, and work, and about the fading boundary between life and death, and between wakefulness and sleep, in a foggy and turbulent plot filled with sensory descriptions and vivid metaphors, with echoes of magical realism resonating throughout.