A novel looking for myself

The novel “Looking for Myself” is a trilogy by the Bahraini novelist “Fathia Nasser”, published by the Arab Foundation for Studies and Publishing. It is a trilogy consisting of ten main chapters and forty secondary chapters. The internal conflicts in human souls and the contradictions in them and the contradictions that humans experience are discussed. This is done by addressing what creates identity and the eternal struggles that a person faces in order to recognize his identity and adapt to life and circumstances, in addition to his interaction with the circumstances surrounding him and the feelings, thoughts, behaviors, beliefs, visions, and influences within him. Orientations, decisions, and discovering strengths and weaknesses. This classic novel is distinguished by its detailed narration of motor and sensory details in a distinctive way, and its focus on principles, morals, and ideals such as truth, freedom, justice, and others, in addition to the huge number of successive events that take place in it, which grow and grow, and the narrator has adopted A single voice for the narration, and what is strange, distinctive, and exciting is that this large trilogy, which consists of 900 pages, is a letter from Amal, the heroine, to her only and eternal lover and lover.

In this novel, the author intertwines political, religious, social, and emotional events together. The author mentions in the novel real references, whether in terms of time or place, with dates and addresses that Bahraini society knows accurately. She also makes speculations and judgments about well-known religious and religious figures. Socially, it is not difficult to know the obsession and plot of this novel, as it seems clear from reading, and it is an ideological obsession that overlaps with the multiplicity of races and beliefs. It is known that Bahrain, and indeed all Arab countries, have a sectarian tendency, so the writer was playing the role of a researcher. In ethnography, this is evident through observing characters who closely resemble real life. They describe professions, sects, relationships, and friendships in direct and hidden ways.

The novel begins with the letter that the heroine, Amal, writes to someone. She is the one who directs the events of the story and narrates them at the same time. Amal narrates the events of her life in detail, and all of her internal and external conflicts, and her conflicts with her family, friends, and work. She has lived since her childhood. With her family in an area where she met her best friend, Rabab, who took her to the open and different life compared to the village she was accustomed to, and how her desire for this friendship conflicted with her family’s rejection of her friendship with this Shiite girl and the disputes that followed. Problems, repercussions and effects, and then her relationship begins with her father’s friend who becomes her lover, then her teacher at the university, then she becomes involved with her poor colleague despite her father’s rejection, and the events and consequences of her actions and feelings conflict with her father’s logic and opinion, and she implements what she wants without paying attention. Her father does not give her the slightest attention or interest or changes her mind for him. She does what she wants and bears the consequences and continues on the journey of life.