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Belly of the Whale is a novel that breaths freshness and comes with a unique taste. Its bitterness is enough to make you delve deeply into yourself and to bring you face to face with your reality. The ideas it hosts encourage you to reconsider your actions in life. Thus, you end up either as one of the thousand deluded searchers for deceptive happiness or as someone who crystalizes life around a single solid and supreme idea that leads towards enlightenment.
About the author
Sonia Saleh Amer, born in Lebanon in 1971, is a prolific novelist, poet and artist. In addition to "Belly of the Whale", Al Rihab Publishing House published her a story collection entitled "...And other stories" in Beirut, Lebanon in February, 2012. Sphinx Agency for literature published her poetry collection entitled "Bird of Paradise" in Cairo in February, 2013. Dar Al Watan published her another poetry collection entitled "Vainglory" in Kuwait in March, 2012. The writer also has several poetic and literary contributions in many local and Arab newspapers, magazines and electronic media resources. She is an active member in a number of literary associations and forums. The novel falls into a few pages of unfussy build but it is not to be judged simply by that. It is lavish in portraying many human lives and several political, social, philosophical and existential ideas. Moreover, the writer has rebelliously left linguistic gaps in the structure so that you, the reader, could participate in making your own novel. You might find yourself embodied in one of the characters who have tussled for so long with existential concepts and searched tirelessly for salvation by all means, even if death itself was the salvation. The line "I face death by expiring in my passion perhaps someday I would die as I always wished" seems to sum up the theme of the novel.
