The Syrian writer and playwright Mustafa Taj Al-Din Al-Mousa won the ArabLit Story Award for the Arabic story translated into English for the year 2021, for his story "How Kind They Are".

The Arablette Story is an award for the best short stories, in any genre, newly translated from Arabic into English.

It requires that the translators own the rights to the work and that the translations have not been previously published.

It is an independent initiative of writers interested in the Arabic story. According to their website, the initiative is funded by the masses and supported by subscribers and, to a lesser extent, advertisers. It is not affiliated with any institution and does not receive any institutional support.

"Simply a masterpiece, an elaborate piece of storytelling. Absurd, strange, and unsettling, it stays with you, ready at any moment to make the hard floor feel unsettled and shaken even more under the your feet."

fear of arrest

This story was written by Al-Mousa, among a group of stories, during his anxious stay in Syria.

He was liable to arrest at any time.

He told Al Jazeera Net about this story, which won the award, that it is dear to him, like the rest of the stories. The writer "is like a mother who loves all her children, so does the writer love all his texts," as he put it.

The Arablit Prize for the short story translated into English is an independent initiative by writers interested in Arabic fiction (websites)

Then Al-Mousa went on to say that some texts have a special memory, whenever the writer passes them, the memory surrounding a text rises, and he explained this by saying: “It seems to me that the mother, after having many children, will not lose her memory of that birth that took place on the sidewalk late during Going to the hospital, and this is what happens with some of the texts of writers, and this is what happened to me personally with some of the stories that I wrote quickly from late 2012 until early 2014 before I left Syria permanently for Turkey.”

completed stories

Al Jazeera Net inquired about the memory that surrounded writing the winning story in particular. Al-Mousa said, "I remember that in the winter of 2013 I used to live my days hiding with acquaintances in the city of Idlib, avoiding public streets and daylight like many. During those horrific days, I wrote the story (How nice they are) and stories other".

As for what distinguishes the stories of that stage, Al-Mousa said that the stories of that stage were almost complete, unlike other texts whose idea or part of it comes and then the writer works on it.

Al-Mousa explained that he was reading these stories to young people who were "hiding together in the same office" located in the city market overlooking the alleys.

This office was convenient for him and his companions, "because in the event of a security raid on the place, we can escape from it by jumping on the roofs of the houses of the old neighborhoods."

This award, which was well-deserved by Mustafa Taj El-Din Al-Mousa, according to the jury’s statement, takes the value of this award, especially from publishing houses, which are waiting for the results of this award to communicate with the winners, and sign contracts with them for translation and publishing.

While the prize value is still low, it is estimated at only $500.

An anthology of stories by Mustafa Taj al-Din entitled "Songs of Our Big Brother" (Al Jazeera)

Kindness and violence

Al-Mousa had published his winning story "How nice they are" on Facebook in June of 2013, and it received a great response from readers, until the time of receiving the "Arabite" award.

Mustafa Taj al-Din al-Musa's way of writing goes to the interiors of his characters, who are usually under great physical or psychological violence, and al-Musa excels in presenting these contradictions in a prose form that is not devoid of poetics.

These antonyms revolve around binaries such as: violence and tenderness, injustice and justice, truth and corruption, isolation and misunderstanding with the world, love and hate.

Some of his stories go beyond simple realism to go into fantasy.

In other words, Musa makes use of all schools of writing to present a text that is strange, violent and delicate at the same time.

Biography of a young storyteller

It is noteworthy that the Syrian narrator and playwright - residing in Turkey - Mustafa Taj al-Din al-Musa, was born in Idlib in 1981, and studied in its schools, before moving to Damascus, the capital, to graduate from the media department at its university.

Prior to his departure from Syria to Turkey on April 20, 2014, Al-Mousa was the head of the cultural and media office, and director of the film club in the branch of the Democratic Youth Union (Ashdes) of the United Syrian Communist Party (2007).

During his stay in Turkey, he became a member of the Syrian Writers Association against the Assad regime, and worked as an editor for a wheat magazine, and as a news editor and prepared for cultural and artistic television segments.

After his collection of short stories "A Wet Vault for Three Painters", which was published in 3 editions, the House of the Citizen released its second collection, "A Vase of a Massacre" in 2014, while the Mediterranean House released its third collection of stories in 2015 entitled "Fear in the Middle of a Wide Field". which is currently being translated into Greek.

The third collection of stories by the writer entitled "Fear in the Middle of a Wide Field" contains 99 stories (Al-Jazeera)

In 2016, his collection of short stories "Half an Hour of Dying" was published by a novel house, then his collection of short stories "The Last Friends of a Beautiful Woman" was published in 2017.

While his sixth collection of short stories "Help Us Get Rid of the Poets" was released by Noun last year, while Khatwat Wa Shalla released this year selections from his collections of stories entitled "Songs of Our Big Brother".

Also this year, an anthology of his stories was published in French by the House of Acts Sud in Paris, and an anthology of his stories will soon be published in English, Italian, Japanese and Greek.

Al-Mousa started his theatrical releases as well with his play "Friend of the Window" winning the Sharjah Prize (2017), to follow his theatrical releases "When Time Stops in the Basement" (2016 - Second Edition 2020), "Letters to the Miner", and "The Maid and the Family of Poets". Which were issued this year by Dar Noun in Turkey.

At the end of our dialogue, Al-Mousa recalled the days when he was hiding in fear of arrest, continuing to write and publish his stories, and now he sees that "there remains of those horrific days except these stories, they always remind me of cases, fears, nights and people who all disappeared and dispersed in the regions of the planet."

Al-Mousa sent a letter of thanks to those who shared with him the tragedy of those days, "whether they were alive or dead", as well as to the translator Mayssa Tanjour, who worked hard, patiently and calmly on translating "How kind they are", so that a distant people could read our memories that despite the passage of years we could not escape from. .