هو ليس أبي، جدي هو أبي.
He is not my father. My grandfather is my father.
From the novel Unforgettable Days · Chapter 4 · character: Ali as a child (to his mother)
Words of a narrator or a character belong to the novel's world, not to the author's personal views.
Unforgettable Days
Unforgettable Daysكما للحاضر أناسه الذين نراهم ويروننا نكلمهم ويكلموننا، الماضي هو الآخر له أناسه ويعيشون فينا بقدر ما نعيش، فلهم حضورهم ولهم وجود وإن شئنا رأيناهم وكلمونا وكلمناهم..
Just as the present has its people, whom we see and who see us, whom we speak to and who speak to us, the past too has its people; they live in us as much as we live, they have presence and existence, and if we wish we see them, they speak to us and we speak to them.
Unforgettable Daysلا تناسبكم أنتم، لكنها تناسبني أنا.
She does not suit you. But she suits me.
Unforgettable Daysفكأني أقف على حافة بئر سحيقة، طِلَّسم من الطلاسم، فلم أرَ من قبل أحدًا يموت أمامي، لم أجرب هذا الشيء الكبير، ولا كنت أعرف معنى كلمة الموت ذاتها، سمعت بها فقط في الحكايات و(الحواديت).
It was as if I stood on the edge of a bottomless well, a riddle among riddles. I had never seen anyone die before me, never tried this great thing, nor knew the meaning of the word death itself; I had heard it only in tales and bedtime stories.