So last week I decided to write about the wonderful world of Naguib Mahfouz which gave me this nice idea, let's dedicate this month to Egyptian authors. I took sometime to think about who should I talk about??? until I found a post on my time line that talked about Riham Rady's signing session at Alef book store so I told my self, well why not?? Lets talk about Riham Rady and her novel ''Farida's Mirror''.
Working at a book store gives me the chance to know about the latest releases and new authors to check out and read. And that's how I came across the novel, the cover and the novel's overview made me want to read it and see how good the novel is. The plot is really simple yet it was an interesting read and showed me how talented Riham is. The novel talks about a young journalist who goes by the name Pinar?! (Hope this is how you pinar in English, not a common name tbh) and her life after her mother's death. The turning point in her life came when her boss asked her to make a new and interesting report for the magazine that she works with. The thing is Pinar is more into celebrities than making serious reports and interview but after a while she decides to take on this new challenge and come out of her comfort zone by making a report about an Egyptian slum area, and how this report will be the key to changing her life. The interesting thing is that Riham decided to talk about Al- Dwika and make it the center piece of Pinar's report. When made me relate to this part is the fact that I went to this area when I was a political sciences student. I had this projects about slum areas and the culture of poverty and we were asked to go to a slum area to study it and apply what we have studied on our projects. It wasn't an easy experience, I was really shocked of what I've seen there. As they say, you have to see it to believe it. I couldn't imagine that people could live in such places.
Imagine living your life in a house that could kill you at any time, no electricity, dirty water and having your whole family to live in one room without a bathroom so the question that the author tried to answer here ''can we make a difference to these people?!'' Yes, it's the government's duty to provide better lives to such people but we as citizens have a role towards these people and that's what Riham tried to prove through Pinar and her report. The thing is the whole experience was a life changer to Pinar, it made her question her life, her goals and aims. There are other sub plots in the novel that contributed in changing pinar's life but I don't want to spoil it for you guys. But I found Pinar's relationship with her boy friend really interesting, Stephen Chbosky was right when he said that we accept the love we think we deserve, it's a common problem that we choose to love and date the wrong people. I think what Riham wanted to say the love isn't everything, you might love someone so much but he isn't treating you right or just doesn't care but still you just keep hanging on to him/her which reminded me of Chbosk'y quote. So as a whole the novel is really simple, depressing a bit but the ending was happy and satisfying. I really do believe that Riham is a really talented author with a great gift in her hands, I liked the novel so much and it is one of my favourite novels in 2014. By god, I was so happy when I met Riham this year in her signing session at the book fair.
So yeah, give this book a try. It's simple, interesting and yes uplifting. It covered a wide range of topics like family relations, slum areas, love and women in the Egyptian society, I really liked how Riham tied all of these topics together without making it long. Hope you guys like the novel, and here is Riham's facebook page so check it out:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D9%85-%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%B6%D9%8A-Riham-Rady/458077604294084?ref=ts&fref=ts
About the author:
- Born in 1987.
- Graduated from the Faculty of mass communication science.
- Farida's mirror is her first novel as an author.
- Besides being an author she works as a business developer as well...
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