Orfanelli Hall, by: Ashraf Al Ashmawy

Every story has a beginning, a tale, and an end, and the life of every human is a novel in which they are the hero, and through it, the world around us is shaped. With an astonishing construction, Ashraf Al-Ashmawy presents his latest novel, whose stories of its three heroes tell their lives but form the chapters of the greater story, the story of the auction hall in which the author ventures into a new fictional world, revealing its secrets, behind-the-scenes, and methods of deception that take place there, and the role of Egyptian Jews in controlling it from the royal era until the seventies. The threads of the heroes' stories intertwine and their human relationships become more complex, so Al-Ashmawy smoothly draws their edges, flowing to tell the most delicate details of souls and clashing with conflicts that lead to crimes. When the threads approach their ends and with the famous third auction that announces the death of desire and the birth of another, surprises explode, expanding our minds with questions as much as our eyes open to truths.