Kohl and cardamom, by: Omar Taher

My appetite has spoiled, I who used to see beyond food in food. There is nothing more delicious than food that has settled for a while inside a pot on the fire, just like the experiences that slowly settle gravity within a person. The fruit I bring back from the market has no guarantee, and it is treacherous like one’s emotional choices. The bread says that a partner is necessary. One grows up and runs away from their family, just as cooked meat falls off the thigh bone, which without it would not form or hold together. The way the baker stretches and gathers his dough is the same way one deals with hallucinations and frustrations in the hour before sleep. The sauce is someone who does not live for themselves, but for others. Only the filling of the pizza makes a difference, but try to keep different people in shared fear or collective singing, and the filling will fall then, and you will discover that the dough is the same. In this novel, Omar Taher discovers the joy of using food and scent to write the story of an ordinary man’s life. Adolescence, love, exile, loneliness, marriage, friends, success and failure… there is always a taste and aroma, as narrated by the protagonist. Shortlist for the Naguib Mahfouz Prize for Literature 2021. Number of pages: 184