The madani phenomenon.

 I wrote a second book!

  For Aliya Alaoui, the world ended twenty-five years ago. For the twenty-five women lodged in her citadel, it did the day that they decided to give her their names, their clothes and their lives.

  The clock of the world starts a countdown when Zahara Ahmed, a young freelance journalist, infiltrates in the infamous Fez citadel to document the lives of its dwellers. Cloistered in their wooden cage, they live and think in an alternate version of the present, the roots of which Zahara tries to dig out as discreetly as she can. But a very sharp ear is needed to notice the sound of the time hands that move inside their minds, to the beat of the great central clock that the hostess keeps in hers. A very sharp wit is needed to understand what this means to the world.

  A lot has happened since I wrote "Antheads", my first book. My writing has changed, my mindset has switched, I have become a little less bitter and a little more numb. "Antheads" was a story of rage and rebellion, "The madani phenomenon" is a tale of resignation. It is about acknowledging the cycle of sorrow and accepting its repeating course - sometimes even boycotting positive change out of the belief that it will all eventually fall back in painful loop. You might not notice it in your first read, maybe not even in your second, but the plot of this book is not that much about the functioning of a cult, and more about how bad behaviors repeat themselves over and over if the people that exhibit them are consistently left alone with their thoughts - as I have found myself in the past few years. It is not exactly a hopeful message yet, but at least it's not the mindless anger that I spilled all over "Antheads", when I was still too young to know what was going on with me. And, well, if you don't mind about all the deep stuff, it's still an entertaining story. 

  The book is currently available in Spanish here. This link will redirect you to amazon.com — it is also available in other markets, just change the extension.

  » Here are some of the characters of my story:

The Man, a man.

Zahara Ahmed, a journalist.

Aliya Alaoui, a hostess.

Saja the Second, a firstborn.

Naima Karim, a girl.

The seventh guest, a guest.

  » Here is a short song that appears in the book:

Antheads.

Check out this book I wrote!

In the bloodstained desert of this world’s most neglected country, a human-sized anthill stands. The remaining citizens of a former nomadic tribe spend each breath of their waking hours in benefit of an authority they do not know. Just like the insects —which have their own role in this convicted society, as well—, their lives price about nothing. Serving, breeding, and crushing beneath the soles of inattentive walkers; born to die. But humans, unlike ants, possess the unlucky trait of rational thinking. How can a herd of fully developed people live in such a simplified matrix, when their brains are designed to bear the havoc of mankind?

A nineteen-year-old boy opens his eyes to this distorted reality, one morning. Actually, the first and only morning of his life. His neurons dispersed, he stumbles around the strange place that is his home, in search of answers for inexistent questions. Something is not quite right about the promises of labor-based recovery they have all been given. Long shifts of manual work certainly don’t seem like the best cure for their heads — even less so, those bizarre sessions of psychological games he is scheduled for. And this purple-eyed youngling he has for a roommate is giving off the stink of hidden secrets.

Every mystery shall have its solution, and every thread must catch up to a pattern eventually. Unless, of course, you only have twenty-four hours of a brain to sew it.

 Did you know you can be artistically productive despite having an entire platoon of relatives drilling your eardrums on how you need to earn your life by traditional means? It only takes a bit of a pighead and a rather good load of masochism. Today is my first book's first birthday, and it feels just as if my babies were turning one, all at the same time... It's strange. About two months have already passed since publishers started reading the drafts. I'm sort of frustrated. Anyways, there are a couple pictures and a few jokes that won't be included in the final version in case it comes out. Why not add them here? 

  »These are my sweet children in order of appearance. I can't say their names, 'cause that would wreck about twenty pages of the thing, but if you just read the excerpt that Amazon lets you read for free, you will recognize some of them.

  »This is some unpublished pictures that I was planning on including as illustrations in the book... but it's hard enough as it is, to get any other soul to read three hundred and thirty-eight pages. I drew them while I was writing the original version —which is way more radical than what's hopefully coming out—, so they're rather dear to me. It's been a year since I commanded whatever pencil it was to produce these images, and I admit my tracework has changed a surprising lot since then. However, I thought it would be a sin to keep them stored forever in a folder, if there's still some pictures left in it that I will not shed light to unless my babies make a big hit. I titled them with direct quotes from the scene they represent.

A scraggly boy with disproportionately 
wide eyes stared at him through his messy,
silver-white bangs.

He didn't go to sleep, not even closed his eyes to protect them from
the blinding aurora in front of him. Instead, he stayed there, sentineling
on the process with a critical eye (...). On the hard way, he had learned
that leaving him alone for a second in that rotten place wasn't an option.


He didn't know her at all, but he embraced her muscular back
with one hand, holding her there until the evident suction of
human mass ascertained the opening of the gate. They went
through relentlessly, like a tap had been opened or a funnel
unblocked. Introducing himself in the flow would have been suicide.

He didn't dignify the procedure by climbing 
fully onto the bed, as if his task was a quick one 
that didn't deserve an excessive effort. 
With no delicacy, he grabbed the hem of the 
coverlet that draped neatly to his collarbones' 
height. Suspending it in the air, he took a final 
instant to evaluate the magnitude of what he 
was about to do.

His first impulse was to flee, but he was pitifully petrified
in situ, his eyes fixed on the fabric covering the left shoulder
of who was now his attacker. Hers, dark and merciless, 
seemed to look right through the dimensions of his physical
facet, rummaging through the abstract mess of his ideas.

  »This is an insignificant, two-page comic containing a little aftermath story, a turbo-sequel of sorts that takes place years after the events of the book. Of course, you won't get a thing if you haven't read it, and even if somehow you managed to hack my computer and get the unpublished file, the dialogue is fully written in Italian and Somali, so you'll have to transcript it by means of my dearest friend: Google Translate. I don't even know why I'm posting this, but who gives a damn. 

  »I initially didn't very much enjoy the fifth chapter of my book... not writing it, not reading it, not looking for information about a place with a virtually null historical record. But, after some time, I found out that I love my side characters just as much as I love my main cast! Guess a mama's heart goes in equal parts, after all. And I'm for real obsessed with Somali people. So I drew my Chapter Five babies (wait for it) in color (kazeenga) for you not to forget their existence like I shamefully did.