The rise of the Third Reich, World War II, the fall of Nazism, the disintegration of Germany, the rise of East Germany, the fall of the communist states, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Terms that may pass over in history books, but they carry dozens of questions: What really happened? How did families who found themselves on opposite sides, divided between opposing ideas and warring countries, live? What does it mean to live in a country that suddenly disappears, and the enemy becomes part of the homeland?
The first thing Maxim Leo learned was to refrain from any questions, even about his family history. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he too decides to break the wall of silence in order to understand what really happened there, with his family, with his grandparents, with his parents, and with himself. To answer the most difficult question: What was so important that it made us strangers to each other even today?
After twenty years of work, Salem ends his service in the police cavalry and returns to his home and family in Deir al-Qarn, bringing with him the only companion that has remained with him all these years: his horse. Family members have different feelings towards this guest, who will now become part of the family. The chains of storytelling revolve between the five children and the mother, and as they revolve, they weave stories and build worlds. In this novel, Mamdouh Azzam writes, in a new and different style from his previous novels, a story about a simple family that lives its tranquility and fear, its surrender and rejection, its peace and its conflicts, to stir within us endless questions and contemplations, while freedom, in its broad meaning, writes the final chapter.
I chose 50 people whose experiences I lived through, whether through the interviews I conducted or the long dialogues through the “Bassat Qalam” program that I presented on Sama Dubai Channel, or through their books that I read and were influenced by. I presented to you a summary of what I read of their ideas and philosophy, and before you sail with me, I want to say that There are other strong personalities, without a doubt, and many that I did not write about, and they deserve to be written about, but I chose these personalities because I lived through their experience closely, and they were 50 Emirati personalities that I present to my dear country (the UAE is in its fiftieth year).
أنا خطيئتُكَ التي لن تُغتفر، وأنا الذنب الذي بينكَ وبين دعواتكَ التي لن تُستجاب. سأظلُ أدعو عليكَ بصلواتي الخمس، وفي كلِّ سجدة، سأطلبُ من عظمته التي يهتزُ لها الكون
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