Description
*The Seventh Day’s Melody* (Ma‘zūfat al-Yawm al-Sābi‘), a novel by Jordanian author Jalal Barjas, was published by Dar Al-Shorouk in 2025 and spans 318 pages.
The author drew inspiration for the novel from a chance encounter with a young Gypsy man who played music and danced while sweeping the street—an encounter that sparked questions regarding identity and dignity. The story unfolds in an imagined city comprising seven districts, with a large camp on its southern outskirts housing Gypsies who had been expelled from the city proper. The city undergoes a period of radical transformation before being struck by a bizarre epidemic that causes the afflicted to fall in love with death; teetering on the brink of annihilation, it finds salvation from an unexpected source. Barjas presents the novel as a symbolic meditation on the erosion of human values and the escalation of conflict, delving into the depths of the psyche to reveal the inherent contradiction between savagery and innocence within the human being.
Through the story of this city—marked by divisions between its districts and the presence of a marginalized Gypsy camp representing a hungry, downtrodden “South”—the novel raises questions about the human fate in an era dominated by economic crises and war, and the collapse of cultural norms. Barjas employs symbols such as the flute, the manuscript, music, and the epidemic to engage the reader in interpreting meaning, affirming that reading is, in itself, an act of writing. The novel appeals to enthusiasts of symbolic literature and social fiction, offering a visionary perspective that encompasses both reality and history.
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