The Jazeerat Al Ward (Island of Roses) trilogy by Egyptian novelist Ibrahim Farghali was recently published by Al Mutawassit Association in Italy. The trilogy features Ibtisamat Al Qideiseen (The Smiles of the Saints), Jenneya Fi Qarora (Jennie in a Bottle) and Miftah Al Hayat (Key of Life). The events of the 464-page trilogy takes place in four cities; Mansoura, Alexandria, Paris and Dubai.
The trilogy addresses the love story of Rami and Christine, a Muslim man and Christian women who fall in love, get married and have Hanin, their first baby girl. Despite that the trilogy seems to address the relationship between Muslims and Christians at first sight, it actually focuses on liberty of women, their freedom of speech and self-respect amidst the conflicting feelings of the liberal West and the supposedly conservative East.
The trilogy records an array of details of Christine’s life, and her disorientation in a cruel and wild world that does not allow people to live life the way it is meant to be lived as God gave it to them, and how they are constrained by harsh rules and negative habits and misconceptions that drive them to ultimate inescapable melancholy, and how they find themselves in constant run between the world’s capitals and cities.