نهاية رجل شجاع. (The End of the Brave Man)

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Student:  Fatima Bdewi

Country: Syria

Language: Arabic

Book title: نهاية رجل شجاع. (The End of the Brave Man)

Author: Hanna Mina

Year of publication: 1989

Summary

This story is about the life of a man named Mofeed  Alwahesh “the beast”. He had a giant body but empty mind. One day, when he was 12-year old, he cut the tail of donkey one of the peasants. For that, his father linked him with ropes, and beat him with “alkirbag,” then he was beaten in front of all the villagers causing psychological harm for him, this led him to escape from the village to the city, and worked in bakery. When he was 18-years old, he fought against the French enemy. As a result, he was imprisoned for two years. In prison Mofeed learned how to read and how to become a man. After being released from prison, he worked at sea –fishing and defending fishing boats. Then he worked at the Port of Lattakia.

At the port occurred many events, adventures, and challenges, so he was changed from “nobody” to a “monster.” Because he became a narcissist, the men of the port turned against him. Mofeed was put in prison for five years, and that is where he got diabetes. For lack of care and attention of his illness, his legs were amputated. Later, his friend helped him get out of desperation by finding him a work as a seller of smoke and prohibited goods on ships.  Mofeed had a dream of having artificial legs, but he fell victim to old problems at the port where he to deal with his enemy. As a result, Mofeed had to face the police.  Because he felt that he lost his dreams, he killed one of the police officer, and then committed suicide immediately afterwards.

Recommendation

The author, Hanna Mina (1924-2015) was born in Lattakia city (my hometown).  His passion and inspiration comes from Lattakia’s mountains and sea.  Mina also contributed to the founding of the Association of Syrian writers and Arab Writers Union. His novels are characterized by realism.

It is a realistic Syrian novel about a man from childhood to adulthood. When it turned into TV series, it had affected people in the Arab world. In this novel, you will find the development of Mofeed’s character from good to evil and from powerful to desperate. There are many people like Mofeed in reality. There are those people who push others to the path of wickedness. As a result, they develop a spirit of evil with bad dealings.  However, if people can understand and deal with such situations in an appropriate moral way, then they won’t end up like the character Mofeed. There are many important lessons learned from this novel. Therefore, I recommend everyone reading this great novel.