An illegal emigrant writes a letter to his lover; a torturer on the run writes his mother… 5 letters accidentally linked to each other.
 

It is a fresh, funny and immensely clever take on what life is like for your average millennial in an unstable corrupt country – where anything is possible, and nothing can be relied upon.  

Benghazi, Lybia, some time in the first half of the past century, Atiqa now a free woman, hears the story of her mother’s life as a slave and lover for the first time.

Hoda Barakat wins the Sultan Bin Ali Al Owais prize, in the Novel category. The prize will be given to her during a ceremony in Dubai, in March 2018.
The very prestigious prize has been given in the past to major Arab artists, intellectuals and writers such as Sa’ad Allah Wanous, Abdul Rahman Mouneef, Nizar Qabbani, Edward Al Kharrat, Jamal Al Ghitani, Edward Said, Zakaria Tamir, Mahmoud Darwish, Adonis, Elias Khoury, Amin Maalouf, and many more.