I grew up and forgot to forget

In her new literary work "I Grew Up and Forgot to Forget," Buthaina Al Essa does not write a traditional story as she has accustomed the reader in most of her creative works, but rather the reader will find himself facing a narration that is of a linguistic aesthetic trend that relies on linguistic deviation, metaphor, and allegory through poetic language that becomes the objective equivalent of reality and life. In this work, Buthaina Al Essa appears as a rebellious woman, a woman who shapes her anger into scattered texts and ventures into new spaces, away from that garden whose roses are restrained by the bonds of customs. The woman/writer appears, telling the story of the Arab woman but with a kind of feminine writing that is highly cunning in its treatment of the story's details, and its analysis of this society represented by the man in his harshness, his masculinity, and his orientalism, all in a poetic language par excellence. She finds her solace in simple yet elusive words that convey the spirit of meaning. We read her: "I embrace my ruins to write... I am broken inside... O mighty one, force me... teach me how to pray... a prayer that is just for me... give me my language... give me my language, O Lord of languages... give me my language so I can beseech You... to You is the glory and praise... give me all my language... give it to me so I can think, so I can be... so I can know myself, so I can know You." So, she philosophizes the narration to be a bearer of multiple meanings, through which she expresses what she wants to tell about her fellow women as she narrates their stories. And with the simplicity of the narration, as in her words on the tongue of the heroine: "I am a poetess in secret, I write silence and melt into it, the world cannot contain my poems." Are we facing a magical woman, or a poetess and writer together who did not exist in this world as we imagine, or are these the eternal existential questions that Buthaina Al Essa addresses in her text with linguistic skill that takes us with her voluntarily toward endings she chooses, shocking us with what is different, maneuvering and weaving, so that her language is the most capable of representing the moment and the problematic of the question. How fascinating you are, Buthaina, and how your writings are rebellious and delicious as if they are honey of words. It is the game of narration that she writes for new beginnings. It is the enchantment of being written by a woman. Book Information: • Author: Buthaina Al Essa • Year of publication: 2013 • Publisher: Arab Scientific Publishers • Number of pages: 280