The Khawajaeya

Mashallah, Dr. Mohammed Al-Makhzangy says: "When I received a digital copy of this work, I was struck by the paradox of the author's name, 'Femoni Akasha,' which I had never heard of before. As soon as I started reading the first pages, I couldn't stop, so I finished it in one day and one night... Coincidentally, I had read before a work that dealt with the same subject... by the French author 'Annie Ernaux,' who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2022. Despite the difference in writing experience between the Nobel laureate Frenchwoman and our author, who clearly indicated that this was her first work, I confidently decide that Femoni Akasha's work is broader, more beautiful, and richer than Annie Ernaux's work, even though the theme is the same—about a daughter observing her mother's fate, who is consumed by what they call dementia following a stroke... Femoni Akasha did not merely revolve around what she records or observes or reacts to, but went far to invoke with a nostalgic spirit lost times and worlds gone, making this work, ignited by tragedy, exude a sweet fragrance of a fleeting love story across seas and countries, between her Egyptian textile engineer father and her Dutch mother, or 'Al-Khawaja' as her Egyptian environment called her, which she never lived outside or on its fringes, but in the heart of its heart... Thus, she summoned the sorrows of the bewilderment of consciousness that afflicted this magnificent 'Khawaja' mother in her Egyptian daughter with the name 'Al-Khawajji,' a presence of the joys of a time, people, and environment that have all passed; another Egypt—more beautiful, gentle, and filled with harmonious shaping and formation. This invocation was supported by photographic documentation and a confident emotion for a much different Egypt and a surreal world from the world we live in."