Iman Abdulrahim Performs 'Pieces on Love and Fear'

The short story collection “Fragments on Love and Fear” by Egyptian writer and novelist Iman Abdel Rahim has been published by Dar Al-Kutub Khan in Cairo. In it, life itself appears as a gossamer thread connecting the narrator of the stories. In the story “Resurrection,” the heroine awakens to her mother’s call to rise quickly and gather her belongings, on the grounds that the day is the end of the world. This preparation resembles Robinson Crusoe’s final journey, as the heroine carries with her what she cannot live without, from her medications to volumes of Will Durant’s “The Story of Civilization,” embarking on an impulsive and frantic course that gradually pushes the narrative toward the utmost reaches of the unknown.

The story evokes the fragility of sudden departure from life, and through language, it sketches a countdown to the world’s last day, tracking the remaining time moment by moment in a psychological preparation for annihilation: “I looked at the clock, and was startled to see it was five o’clock; only one hour of time remained.” The narrative then shifts to a surrealist horizon, where images of flying, soaring, and wings recur as metaphors for liberation from the weight of the body and preparation for a more transparent absence.

Time and Calendars

People and Society

Security and Justice

The writing embodies the pulse of that surrealist state with a free sensibility, closer to brushstrokes that unleash their chaos onto the canvas, as it seeks to grasp a fleeting, elusive scene; colors change, and sources of light multiply, while flying itself becomes a tool of vision, not merely an action within the story: “The cold, nebulous space shifts its purple hue, sometimes to deep blue, sometimes to pitch black, and gradually returns to purple, while I continue to pierce through that diamond-dust cloud, much of which clings to my wings, enhancing their beauty. I urge my flight onward, heading toward the distant source of light. As I draw closer, it becomes increasingly clear that its color is milky white. The image clarifies with each step; the light has multiple sources—several spiral beams of light. That is the most fitting phrase to describe what I see.”