Behind the fence

Publisher: Arab Outreach Foundation Section: Short Stories Author: Shaima Al-Shammari Language: Arabic Pages: 112 Overview: Very short stories by the writer Shaima Al-Shammari approaching what is called today the flash fiction story, which relies on condensation, suggestion, and brevity. The texts of the collection revolve around multiple themes reflecting human situations and different visible facts in an indirect way, tending towards ideas open to interpretation, leaving them wide open for the reader to infer the meaning. This is most evident if we read (Opportunity): "I waited for them until they finished discussing the wave, and when they went out to the beach... I jumped into the sea, and that thorn embedded in my thumb no longer hurts...!". The book includes fifty very short stories under the following titles: "Behind the Fence," "Once Upon a Time," "Something," "Life," "Guardianship," "Ununderstandable Things," "Philosophy," "The Unknown," "Horror," "Question," "Trap," (...) and other stories.