Muscat,(ONA) Dr. Saeed bin Muhammad Al-Siyabi takes his reader to a new experience through the novel “Al-Sirah ... Tells”, after entering the corridors of history through his first novel, “Jibrin ... and the Desire of Love”, recording an important feature in the inscriptions of the Omani memory, through important stages, and in an artistic narrative that evokes the past through the story, to place it before today's reader in a new guise.
Al-Sayyabi’s new narrative work takes his reader to the frontiers of yesterday, which is packed with many tales that are able to supplement fictional works with more. The novel introduces an aspect of the Omani resistance to the Portuguese invasion, and how Al-Sir remained in the lofty villages to unite the castles of Oman with it in order to expel the occupier who wreaked havoc on the land through a story that mixed between the present and the past, which the doctoral student tells when he puts his feet on the land of Portugal and in his mind the question of what happened in a period that was not well documented. The paradox was that his research in the colonial state and its documents due to the lack of documents in the country that had suffered from the disasters of the devastating occupation, due to various circumstances related to the culture of interest in the major events taking place to record them.
The novel is divided into a group of chapters-like titles that are divided into three sections that begin with something like the introduction to “One Hundred Years in Eternity Ink”, which defines the place and time covered by the narrative work. He says that it is “a novel that takes inspiration from the footsteps of history, as it travels in the corridors of the period between 1506 and 1648, and the place on the Sea of Oman, in the area of the flooding fan located between Qalhat and Muscat, that spot formed from two wings: greenery of plants and blue of the sea, the Wilayat of Qurayyat.” Its name indicates a group of villages, and its location combines three different terrains that can be seen from one place, which are the elements of life, and the extension of their cultural continuity ... the sea, the plain and the mountain.
Al-Siyabi divides his novel into three parts, the first consisting of 13 titles, starting with “Al-Sira Looking from the Highest Pole” and concluding with a chapter entitled “Shadow-like” as one of the protagonists of the novel. The second section, in the opening of its ten titles, deals with “Majzoub ... A Fist of Light” to “Bending to the Storm.” The third section includes seven titles, ending with “As the foot of a mountain or is higher” and continuing before the last chapters of the novel with “the demolition of the castle” in the month of Ramadan from 1058. “The walled castle of the Portuguese was demolished from its top, nothing left except its scattered stones, and its site that was opposite Al-Sirah tower, and its memory was wiped out of existence, no one could see it or hear its cannons.” The last chapter entitled “The Bags Return” comes after six years of study spent by the protagonist (narrator). The story begins with the moment the protagonist (narrator) discovers Portugal as he exits its airport and faces a set of surprises, beginning with the taxi driver and the family he lives with, then when he meets the supervisor of his thesis, and the Arab students studying in the capital Lisbon.
There are two times in the novel, the present one related to the doctoral student, and the past with the events that took place during the period of the Portuguese invasion of Oman, and its arrival in Qurayyat, as well as it extends over two places, Portugal as a present country offers the Omani student the opportunity to study to obtain a diploma, and Qurayyat, which the protagonist (narrator) comes from as an incubator for events. The temporal and spatial visions coincide with the student finding his intention in the Portuguese National Archives with a group of documents that refer to “Qurayyat”, tracing the history of his land.
Dr. Saeed Al-Siyabi dedicates his novel to his uncle, Salim bin Saleh Al-Siyabi, who planted the love of reading in him.
It is noteworthy that the author has several narrative experiences in writing the short story, including his collection “Black Loaf”, and another in the very short story, including “The Sharpener and the Pen”, which were issued by Al Ghasham Publishing Foundation, in addition to research studies in theater.
The novel “Al-Sirah ... Tells” was published by the Omani Luban Publishing Foundation, among its first publications that it started after its launch on the tenth of October.
(ONA)