Prepare for Life or Departure

About this book

A twenty-year-old man carries the weight of loss, loneliness, betrayal and emotional disorder through psychiatric wards and darkened rooms. He retreats into an imagined safety and the trace of a love that never fully entered reality. Mahmoud Zidan blends literary prose with sorrowful verse to examine grief, addiction and the social stigma surrounding mental illness. At the centre is a difficult question: can writing become a route back to life, or does illusion leave only the prospect of departure?