? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Box of Sand (Sanduk El Raml) by Aicha Ibrahim uses a smooth, flowing narrative style akin to the Libyan desert from where the events of this Arabic novel take place. The story uses the testimonies of Italian and English journalists during the Italian-Libyan war in 1911, and through it we meet Sandro Compariti, a journalist who traveled to Tripoli with the 84th legion on his way to fight on the front. On his trip he finds Halima, a Tripolitan milk merchant, whom he meets in a desert trench and falls in love with. However, their love is unable to survive the war, as Halima’s mother is killed and she and her younger brother are captured and tortured in the Italian penal colonies after the town of Al Manshiya was captured. Sandro eventually leaves Libya carrying with him the atrocities that he saw during the war and the penal colonies, where innocent girls, women and children were lost without accusation or court hearings. The novel earned a long list nomination for the International Arabic Booker prize this year. You can get your copy on the Abgad app.

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