CAIRO: On Tuesday, a signing ceremony was held for Ahmed Mahana's new collection of short stories titled “Alienation” at the Alef bookstore in downtown Cairo. The event was inaugurated by the bookstore's director Emad Adly. Although the collection of stories were published last year, the writer did not hold its signing ceremony until this week. He justified the move saying that “because I did not want to embarrass my friends into buying the stories and wanted to evaluate the sales of it in objectivity way.” Coincidentally, he held a signing ceremony near the end of the first edition and the start of the printing of the second edition, showing that sales have been strong. Mahana wrote his stories in a different manner, he said, called “consecutive stories,” which contains 7 stories in total, but without any of them having a title. The author had come into the spotlight earlier this month after a book he helped publish supporting Mohamed ElBaradei allegedly led to his arrest and 24 hour detention. Police, however, said that he was detained due to rumors he was in possession of banned Islamic material. Rights groups and activists were quick to pick up the story, saying he was arrested for supporting the new opposition figurehead. Mahana added to the small audience that he had deleted some stories from his book, stressing that “the reader can read the stories in a manner separate, or believe that the hero is one for all the stories.” He said “there are multiple cases” within the book for all to enjoy and added that “alienation in the stories does not mean alienation from home, but it means alienation of the soul.” The book is available at Alef Bookstore in Cairo. BM
