The little god's play - Tarek Al-Tayeb

The events of the novel "Lahw Al-Ilah Al-Saghir" take place over 13 chapters, about the birth of "Shams" in strange circumstances surrounded by ambiguous events. The story is told through three voices with three different letters in the novel, from the perspective of "Shams" with incomplete details, complemented by two symbolic characters: one close to him who corrects the wrong events, and the other the revealer who uncovers secrets and completes the missing parts. The Little God has the most important roles in the novel, and therefore the novel is named after this. The tragedy of "Shams" begins in a city from which all humans and living creatures have disappeared, increasing his tragedy, which will be greater than his existence alone in this world. From the atmosphere of the novel: "Three cared for me in my childhood: my older sister (Noor), my aunt (Balsam), and a third character who appeared to me from afar, but I couldn't grasp her features or catch her name. For many reasons, this crowd surrounded me and treated me with kindness, perhaps because of my orphanhood, or perhaps due to my father's instructions, who assigned someone to care for me and from whom I was breastfed. It was said that our neighbor ‘Attaf’ was the one who nursed me. My aunt was always like a mother to me; I knew no other as a mother, even though my heart was overwhelmingly inclined toward ‘Attaf’ whenever I saw her and saw her tearful, sorrowful eyes. This intense female attention filled my soul and my feelings with a contradictory state of calmness and softness, and a strange feeling that I had to boast of my masculine qualities, which they crowned upon me on every occasion. My father was strict about that softness and tenderness from the women of the family. On the other hand, he justified me by saying I never made mistakes, so my siblings' rights were lost in any lies I fabricated against them or any problems I stirred with them; because I was always the little god of my father and always right."