Was it still possible to add anything about Al-Mutanabbi, who filled the world and preoccupied the people, throughout these centuries that extended from his birth until now?!.. And did there remain a side of him that had not been studied, examined, and examined in more than one way, nor was it subject to discussion and debate among the fans of this great poet? And between his critics and haters?!..
Al-Mutanabbi is a unique figure in our literary heritage. His lovers, readers, and memorizers of his poetry are more numerous than those who can be counted, and it is too dangerous to clash with them without prior preparation and readiness. They have extensive knowledge of his poetry and many of the stages and details of his life. Their zeal in defending or attacking it is immeasurable. Therefore, the prior image is more binding. The imagined picture of him that they drew for him is too attached to the imagination to be discussed. Its relationship with national identity is more rooted and dangerous. This is what makes attacking him, for many, an attack on one of the nation’s “values and symbols.”
But I am writing about Al-Mutanabbi after I spent two full years reading him, analyzing his poetry, and studying the details of his life in order to write a television series about him. Dramatic writing requires its author to penetrate as much as he can into the souls of his heroes in order to understand them, to imagine them in the situations in which humans might be, and to draw their reactions, with dramatic logic, as human reactions might be. All of this is within the framework of documented historical information.
On the night that her husband and children prepare to travel, symptoms of a psychological disorder begin to appear on Mead, a photographer and newspaper archive official. A disorder that makes her see all faces as one face, the face of a bearded Greek god, and little by little, as the disorder worsens, details of the present and past events that led her to the extremely complex social maze she faces are revealed. In a narrative shrouded in mystery, the writer combines imagination with heritage, myth, fantasy, and history, to create from all of this a tight narrative text that discusses major existential and philosophical questions: What is the role of the other versus the ego? What if the hell was me? What if the world existed within the being of only one individual and everything else was an illusion?
