The Bottle and the Genie
Muhammed Abu Maatouk
The Bottle and the Genie (Al Kawkab, Beirut, 2008), set in an ordinary neighbourhood in old Aleppo, presents a microcosm of Syrian society during the period of social and political unrest from the 1950 to the1980s. With its effective, if measured, use of magical realism, Syrian author Mohammad Abu Maatouk’s story recreates the lives of ordinary people in the neighbourhood, sharing their trials and tribulations during this troubled time in Syrian history.
Nomination
2009 Longlist
Muhammed Abu Maatouk
Country of origin Syria
About the author
Muhammed Abu Maatouk is a Syrian playwright, born in Aleppo in 1950. He graduated with a BA in Arabic Language from Aleppo University in 1975 and published his first two plays in Damascus in 1978. Many of his plays are for children and he has also written eight novels, short stories and scripts for successful television soaps. His first novel was The Tree of Speech (Dar al-Raes, London, 1990) and The Bottle and the Genie (Al-Kawkab, Beirut, 2008) reached the longlist of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2009.