This is the story of oppression by and resistance to a cruel power and an unjust prison sentence, pierced through with the gentle love of a son finding tenderness for his father in a situation riddled with guilt, depravity, and shame. In ElGendy’s masterful hands, his personal history becomes not only a beautiful, artistic expression of deliverance and redemption, but also a heroic clarion call for moral decency and liberation more broadly. Fearless and elegant—an uncompromising work from a new author with a mighty voice.
he renders his ordeal in unflinching yet hopeful prose that charts the struggle of mind and spirit against a dehumanizing reality ('When I failed to dodge the whips and the jailers’ curses, I dreamed of the ways the pages, one day, would do me justice'). It adds up to a stirring reflection on survival and resistance.
