Years of attendance and absence, by: Hamad Alhamad

The novelist Hamad Alhamad returns with a new novel after a six-year absence titled "Years of Presence and Absence". The author wrote in its introduction: "During the Corona isolation in July 2020, I opened the laptop and started writing this novel. I only knew the first lines, and the suffering of writing continued until the end of March 2021 to complete the work. A novel that chronicles the features of a changing society." Over six chapters, the writer drew out features of ideas stored in his mind, to shape events and characters that coexist with a changing time outside the walls of Kuwait, where we find the old Souk Khaitan, and Khalifa living with his own world and an old house and an extended love with Baza. There, Abu Halifa is a village adjacent to the sea, and Haj Abu Mahmoud the Palestinian tells Khalifa, "Son, a house replaces a house, but a homeland cannot be replaced by a homeland." We see Tawfiq Al-Sumaiy leaving Zubair forever, and Uncle Saud falling into his exhausted world between Basra and Kuwait for Jameela. And Badr, the Kuwaiti, in an extended absence, discovering that he has become Badr Al-Badoun. His constant question was: Where is Munira? Features fading in the city of Riyadh, in the Ghamita neighborhood. Number of pages: 357