Al Dar Al Ahlia publishes Bassam Gamil's 'Hakatha Najawt'

CAIRO – 2 May 2018: Al Dar Al Ahlia Bookstore in Amman, Jordan, published the novel "Hakatha Najawt" (That’s how I survived), by Palestinian author Bassam Gamil.

The novel follows a prisoner and a reporter named Khalil Daif whose writings fell in the hands of an Israeli journalist; the journalist discovers the resemblance between the protagonist and her husband, the missing Israeli pilot. She begins to search for her husband by bringing herself close to Daif and she starts to interrogate him on the pretext of showing sympathy to the Palestinian people.

The events in the story occur in the occupation prisons and in the city of Ramallah, Palestine.

Gamil was born in 1984 in Damascus, Syria. He published several novels; Dar Azminah for Publishing and Distribution in Amman published his series of stories called "Dimashq wa Esmi" (Damascus and my name) in 2013. In 2014, Fadaat for publishing and distribution published Gamil's novel "Seerati al Motakhaila" (My Imaginary Autobiography).

Palestinian poet and researcher Al Mutawakil Taha said that "Hakatha Najawt" depicts both fantasy and bitter reality in contrast to each other, where the author puts before the readers scenes from the Palestinians' daily lives in a way more surreal than the wildest fantasy imaginable.

Taha explained that this novel is bold and is trying to establish a world that tells the reader that "we are still on the verge of the earthquake".