The Land of Daisies: A philosophical novel exploring happiness, love, and destiny in an attempt to understand life more deeply, written in the style and language of a poet, the thought of a philosopher, and the intentions of a human being. (Arabic Edition)
An epic, poetic, and philosophical novel, a classic of the century, unparalleled in the history of Arabic literature. Every phrase within it is iconic. No one, after the novelist or short story writer, truly understands life in its fleeting details, and at its most profound, the human condition. The more a writer engages with language, the more they have experienced life to its fullest and deepest extent. The author of these works has over fifty thousand pages in which he never repeated a single meaning, not even quoting himself, except for the general themes he adopted as a grand humanitarian goal. He has surpassed ten million words and forty books, exploring a vast horizon of ideas, visions, and meanings, employing the epic novel, the short story, poetry, and screenplay with a breadth that can be considered among the finest in modern Arabic literature.
...An example of the language of this novel: The Flood
We did not consider the price of our existence...
And we were in the lands of others,
Paying our lives as price...
Oh, if only we had never seen their worlds,
And they had not placed tons of stones in our chests! And we no longer echo their saying: "It is shameful to die humiliated."
In what we see here, and the secret to our happiness,
How beautiful is death in the arms of others,
If everyone becomes our friend...
Our day is a month... and our month is an eternity...
We forgot that in their world, there is oppression...
Their eyes are deceitful... their weapon is depravity...
Everything with them has a price...
And if the price is not met, then with them there is debauchery and treachery...
We forgot them... and we forgot their affairs...
Here, purity flourishes, the back rests, and the flowers rejoice...
We loved, we played, we roamed, we rejoiced, we listened, we danced,
And nothing of their affairs concerned us...
But we...
But we wept when We heard their drums beating again on their seventh day... Then the drumming intensified... The earth raged and surged before them, and the trunk began to bend... So by what blessings do they lie, deceive, and kill, until the trunk and the branch are gone... The resurrection stirs anew, and the udder is dry... They have no law or code for killing... They destroyed all the shelters, and their men became bald... Their hair is in their throats... and their eyes are blind... Until they annihilated everything they found,
And not a single one of them remained... And their worlds ended... The earth opens its cracks... And the swallowing ends...
Zuhair Al-Shalabi wrote the tales of his grandfather and his homeland as he wrote in the language of his grandson and the future The awaited one! He endured tragedy in its most extreme form and experienced love in all its beautiful shades, reflecting an immense yearning for happiness and beauty. In this, his aspirations were humane, transcending individualism, tribalism, and racism. A list of many of his works is included at the end of these stories. He is a figure within this turbulent history.