Deldashad: The story of hunger and satiety, author: Bushra Khalfan

The novel "Deldashad" is divided into three chapters, each chapter bearing the name of a neighborhood from Muscat, where the main events of the novel take place, in the first half of the twentieth century. The main character, "Deldashad," the Muscat boy, of unknown lineage, who grows up in a neighborhood of the "Baloch," influenced by their culture and those around them from the Arabs. From him, Maryam inherits hunger and laughter, and she becomes his daughter, mother, and companion in his blindness, but due to his extreme poverty, he is forced to hand her over to a Muscat merchant's house, where she works for her meal. In that house, Maryam experiences the contradictions of life, where she lives peacefully then is forced to run away. "Deldashad" is a novel about hunger and sadness, adventure, and love, in which stories are told with multiple voices and in different languages, reflecting the diversity of cultures in Muscat. The description of the book "Deldashad" in a time dominated by poverty and disease, leaving his only daughter to her fate, and she had to find her way in a world of greed governed by the memory of hunger. A wonderful novel among Arab novels that makes you feel the sting of hunger in its words, as you sense your body beginning to weaken and drain in search of a bite here and a bite there, about the absence that sometimes leads the characters toward death or toward another life and another experience of hunger. In the book "Deldashad," I almost see Deldashad's face smiling through pain, loss, hunger, and confusion, almost searching with him for what will silence that hungry mouth. This novel, life, this dangerous game, as soon as it begins, is swept away by a tide of its tragedies, making you cry and laugh and smell the scents of death and poverty, then letting the current take you down paths drawn by fate for its characters. This novel was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (Booker) in 2022. Quotes from the book "Deldashad" — The biography of hunger and satiety by Bushra Khalfan: I was an orphan, and only orphans know the meaning of nakedness, and how the cold pierces your bones from the moment of birth until death. Yes, I spent my early years among many mothers, but none of them held me to their chest or gave me a bite, and when I was in some tent, Halima would divide the food among her children first, then remember me and put something in my mouth. Whoever knows hunger knows it remains in the blood, like an illness; no satiety after it can cure you of it. The world was created carried on the shoulders of fathers, and the sky falls whenever they leave, and life, all of life, becomes empty if there is no space for them, and the look of reproach in their eyes is just short lessons passed between the heart and the eye. Number of pages: 494