Impoverished Egyptian teacher Helmy is desperate to find a better life for himself, his wife and little boy, seeing no future at home in Cairo. He dreams of working in oil-rich Kuwait and its boom in construction being the answer, just like many thousands before him. He manages to borrow the huge cost of a visa and is at last on his way to Kuwait City. He has no idea of the hellish nightmare, instead of the dream, that awaits him - the relentless summer sun and temperature of 56C and more, the choking dust and sweat, having to do construction work instead of teaching. And always, no money, and no answers from the many officials that he comes up against. Instead of achieving his dream, he falls into trap after trap. The author is himself a character in the novel, an engineer with the construction company who is writing a novel about the humiliating and degrading experiences of the migrant foreign workers arriving in Kuwait to make their fortunes. In the Preface to the novel, author Taleb Alrefai writes: "The novel casts lights on the lives of thousands of workers who come to the Gulf states with dreams of money and wealth, but who are confronted with the harshness of a desolate reality. It exposes specifically the suffering of migrant workers in Kuwait, be they Arabs or foreigners, and how their every moment is shaped by need, injustice and cruelty. Some commit suicide, but that has no effect on the work on site under the blazing sun that's like the lash of hell. "Almost a historical document on my life and the lives of the workers with whom I lived for fifteen years, Shadow of the Sun presents a human landscape set in and reflecting Kuwait."

This Kuwaiti novel exposes the reality of life for the country's migrant construction workers * Migrant workers come to Kuwait to change their lives for the better but found only a murderous sun, injustice & poverty * The novel is based on the author's own experiences * The Kuwaiti author questions the horrendous treatment meted out to migrant construction workers in his country Keywords: migrant;construction;burning sun;dreams;wealth;big money;sandstorms;residence permit;work visa;sub-contractor;teaching Arabic

About the Author
Taleb Alrefai is a well-known Kuwaiti novelist and short-story-writer, born in 1958, who started publishing short stories in local newspapers when he was an engineering student at the University of Kuwait in the mid-1970s. Shadow of the Sun (2000 and 2012, Dhil al-Shams), centring on the suffering of Egyptian and other foreign workers in Kuwait, is his first novel. In 2002, he was awarded the State Prize for Letters for his novel Ra'ihat al-Bahr (Scent of the Sea). In 2011 he founded Al-Multaqa (Cultural Circle), a regular literary discussion forum in Kuwait City, which led to the founding of the annual Almultaqa Prize for the Arabic Short Story in 2016. That year his novel Fi al-Huna (Here and There) was longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction and now has a French edition. His novel Al-Najdi (2017, The Mariner) has editions in English (Banipal Books, 2020, and Spiracle audiobook 2022), French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese and Turkish. He lives in Kuwait City and works as a creative writing lecturer at the American University of Kuwait.


Book Information
ISBN 9781913043360
Author Taleb Alrefai
Format Paperback
Page Count 192
Imprint Banipal Books
Publisher Banipal Books
Weight(grams) 176g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 14mm