My Mother Hessa's Mice Novel
Author: Saud Al-Sanousi
Number of pages: 437
Book size: 21 x 14
Saud Alsanousi writes about the Arabs' past and present, and it is no exaggeration to say that he predicts their future, after they have handed over their keys. The question remains: What next?
The novel's events take place in the Arabian Gulf region, spanning from the 1970s to a hypothetical future in 2020. It addresses Kuwaiti society in its social and political transformations. Within a narrative framework, the author presents a socio-political approach that could serve as a critical document of the events experienced by the Arabian Gulf region in its modern history, from the Iranian Revolution through the First Gulf War (Iraq and Iran), the Second Gulf War (Iraq and Kuwait), and the fall of Baghdad at the hands of American forces in 2003, all the way through the current Arab revolutions. The novel takes the lives of three boys, friends and neighbors with different religious and sectarian affiliations, as the subject of the narrative, which will shape their relationships and alter their affiliations in ways that differ from their upbringing, in accordance with each stage. Al-Sanousi does this through the character of the narrator, a partial partner, a constant witness, and the other characters who complement the course of events and incidents, and the tragic endings they will lead to in a hypothetical time that is bound to come... and in our present there is more than one scene.
From the atmosphere of the novel:
"Behind this wall, we had a life teeming with life. Oh! Only childhood memories are etched in my conscience, and every other memory is fleeting. I feel like a child in front of the house's wall. The wall was much lower than the one I see now. Half of it, or less. A new color that betrayed the newness of its upper part, bearing witness to the transformation of a time, the before and the after. Friday mornings, especially the winter ones, were the most we three could hope for: Sadiq, Fahd, and me. The courtyard of Uncle Saleh's house, Fahd's father, was our little paradise. I would love to push the door open, but fear... damn its power. In distant years, I would fall, in a repeated turn, extending my small hands inside the horizontal crack at the bottom of the door, handling the iron latch fixed in a hole in the ground. I would stand upright. I would push the door open with ease. Today, do you see how many latches, locks, and chains are behind this door?