Words of Longing on the Hills of Glory

About the book

The book was written over two months in 2004. The initial idea was to enter a cultural competition entitled “The Story of a Southern Village”; printing and publishing it had not been envisaged. But after immersing myself in the wondrous beauty of Yohmor al-Chaqif’s hills and valleys, the springs of love flowing through its lanes and nesting in the walls of its old houses, and the stories of suffering and patience that filled most villages of Amila before the liberation in May 2000, every storehouse of memory burst into a shower of images, words, and stories. I set them down with sincerity and openness on the pages of Words of Longing.

I spent nights beside the river or at the highest point of the castle, turning the pages of my own self and of Yohmor’s soil. I discovered a magical world pulsing with loyalty, divine beauty, steadfastness beyond the limits of endurance, and boundless hope that the ogre crouching beside us would disappear. The pages grew beyond the competition’s limit, so I decided to publish this outpouring of feelings woven into true stories, so that my story might speak to all the villages of Amila, rather than one village alone.