The Shadow Government

Perhaps the novel is the most appropriate literary genre for expressing the movement of history and its makers, indeed for reshaping and reading it consciously. If you understand the past, you will be drawn to solving the mysteries of the present and perhaps even anticipating the future.
In “The Shadow Government,” Munther Al-Qabbani sheds light on the role of some secret movements operating in the shadows and their influence on decision-making, whether political or economic. In the novel’s narrative, history and the present go hand in hand, reinforcing each other. Between the landing of Naim Al-Wazzan’s plane at Casablanca Airport at the beginning of the novel and its takeoff to Malaysia at the end, there are two parallel narrative trajectories. The first is a historical one, set in Istanbul, Turkey, in the early twentieth century, and its hero is the grandfather Khalil Al-Wazzan. The second is a contemporary one, set in a different Arab city at the end of the twentieth century, and its hero is the grandson Naim Al-Wazzan. Between the two trajectories lies a wealth of pressing events and facts, and a bleak reality that weighs heavily on the characters and the nations.