The Son of Sinbad

By Najwan Najah Al-Jiddah

Foreword
By: Thamer Al-Saadi
Director of Ain Center for Contemporary Studies and Research

The novel contained in this volume was originally a long story belonging to a large collection of tales that the author began writing years ago. The basic idea of this project is to complete a postmodern work in the spirit of the classic Arabian Nights. We do not know whether this project will be completed and published as the author intended, but we do know that some of these stories are certainly complete and ready for publication. The Son of Sinbad and the Five Destinies is among the first completed stories within this context. In order to prepare it for independent publication, the author gave it an additional shaping without touching its essence, and it became a short novel in which he presented a fully formed "maritime utopia"; he fashioned for it a moral geography, an oral history, and common folk proverbs. It is an epic drama that evokes the tales of Sinbad and his voyages through dangerous seas and unknown islands, and the wonders, marvels, creatures, and adventures he encounters. Yet the value of the novel does not lie in its suspenseful plot, but in its distinctive poetic language, which resembles a splendid and refined celebration of the sea and the greatness of the sea. Although the novel loosens some of the rules of modern narration in imitation of the old storytelling mode, it blends this with a special narrative voice, producing a hybrid language that raises the heritage tale to the level of postmodern literature. Here the author has not transmitted a dry historical document about the Abbasid age, but has invented and carved out a complete anthropological society parallel to the society of dry land. He has given the sea a language, a doctrine, laws, criminal courts, and value-based customs that form an invented anthropological identity of intense pride and dignity, creating a proud maritime culture that sees dry land as an abode of helplessness and submission, and sees in the sea a field of freedom, justice, and human dignity.
It is a novel that excellently combines the pleasure of storytelling, the depth of philosophy, and the uniqueness of language.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0H9CNW3ZF
• ISBN13: 9798187514106
• Release Date: July 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 124 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.3" x 8.0"