Maherdar

“Maherdar” is a personal biography of a beloved Palestinian village, or as its author calls it, “The Heart’s First Adventure,” perhaps inspired by Firas Al-Sawah’s book, “The Mind’s First Adventure.” In it, we discover how a narrator can transcend his narrative and stories, and even how writing can overcome storytelling and oral tradition.
In this work, Ahmed Salama’s memory spans a quarter of a century, all but a little, as he recounts the stories of “Bidya,” the Palestinian village steeped in blood, forbidden love in a conservative environment, the boy who delivered the Friday sermon at the age of no more than fifteen, the olive oil that the town’s oil exports used to illuminate the Sultan’s capital, and so on and so forth…
“Maherdar is a novel that tells the history of Palestine, its cities, mountains, and people… Maherdar… is hawthorn, grapes, akoub, and the stories of early love…
The Dome of Bidya, and the castle of its secret stories…”
About “Maherdar,” Salama says: “When I first began to think about it, I was absolutely realistic. When I finished, I didn’t know if I was exaggerating in my imagination and my narrative realism to the point of photographic realism…? Now, as I present “Maherdar” as a gift to its reader, I’ve come to believe that it’s neither entirely fictional nor realistic in most of its forms…