Although many people feel depressed when they see him, (because he reminds them of death, the afterlife, and prayers. - al-Tayyib Salih

But I would hope you will not entertain the idea, dear sirs, that Mustafa Sa'eed had become an obsession that was ever with me in my comings and goings. Sometimes months would pass without his crossing my mind. In any case, he had died, by drowning or by suicide - God alone knows.

I had not thought of the boys during the whole of the ghastly journey. I had been thinking of her. Again I said to Mahjoub: 'What happened?'

The human world is a “boiling cauldron” that cannot be defined precisely ― it is a dynamic fluid with smooth gradation within, at the same time integral and turbulent, and both known and unknown to itself.