Sperm

In Adham Sharqawi’s novel “Sperm,” we examine the story of an exceptional prison, one where cruelty is at its most extreme, and human feelings are minimally devoid of any human emotion. It is a story of love and pain, revealing a significant presence of psychological pain. The torment becomes doubled, surpassed by its intensity, with the beloved, who lurks outside the prison walls. Thus, the suffering is compounded emotionally and connected to what is shared with others, family and loved ones in the same homeland.
The novel takes place in occupied Gaza, a Gaza ruled by war, just as the earth is ruled by rotation. Its protagonists are Hamza, a university student who finds the earth’s back narrow and finds its belly spacious. He digs tunnels in preparation for the coming battle, and Asma, a beautiful twenty-year-old girl whom Hamza meets by chance and is captivated by her. His life is turned upside down, and a sincere love affair develops between them, leading to marriage. The events unfold in the novel, until Hamza is arrested a month after his marriage to Asma and sentenced to years in prison in enemy prisons. In order to have children, he and Asma decide to smuggle sperm out of the prison to give birth, despite Israel and its prison cells. Both believe they are not giving birth to children, but rather to soldiers for the coming battles. And they succeed.
From the novel’s atmosphere, we read: “… This is our story, Asma. I began writing it without knowing its ending. The first letter I sketched was in a prison cell, and the last letter I am writing now is in the home that unites us. You are now sleeping a meter from my heart, and Amal is in your arms. I look at you, and only now do I understand what Darwish meant when he said: ‘On this land there is something worth living for…'”