The novel Hermoush Island by Egyptian novelist Mohsen Younis is rooted in the concept of free aesthetic play—playing with storytelling and through it. The novel thus becomes a space for experimentation and adventure, deriving its merit from its ability to build, dismantle, and rebuild its narrative structure, taking the reader on an enjoyable journey—not to the island that forms the center of events, but toward the search for new aesthetics in the art of the novel and a different way of seeing the world.
اضافة اعلان
The novel was published by Gaia Publishing House in Cairo and won the award for Best Novel at the Cairo International Book Fair 2025. It consists of fifty narrative segments divided into three chapters. However, there is no substantial difference between the first and second chapters, which could be considered a single chapter. Together, they construct a fictional tale about a group of friends and colleagues working in a government department, among them the protagonist “Salama Hermoush,” who accidentally discovers an enchanted island in the middle of the sea, opposite their small coastal town, overflowing with gold, precious metals, and gemstones. He informs his close friend Khalil Hawas, and the two decide to rent a small boat and head to the island to collect as much of its treasures as they can.
In these two chapters, the journey to the island and the details of staying there and drawing from its riches form the core of the story, with all the strangeness they entail. The trip, initially planned to include only the two friends, expands to involve six people: Salama’s wife, three of Khalil’s friends, and the boat owner who sails them there. During the journey, many marvels appear: the island recedes the closer they get to it; they encounter numerous oddities at sea, from harsh weather at times to sudden attacks by birds on their boat; and dolphins circle the vessel and become a means of transport, with the travelers riding on their backs and frolicking in the water in hopes of reaching the impossible island, especially since the boat itself is unable to reach it.
Numerous wonders mark this strange voyage toward an island that appears enchanted, and even more marvels unfold upon reaching the mysterious and generous island, which provides them with every kind of food they desire and everything they need to live—not only gold and gemstones. This brings the tale close to the stories of One Thousand and One Nights, drawing clearly on the most famous and central popular text in Arabic literature, and employing the techniques and fantastical elements of the Nights to produce a contemporary novelistic text, far removed from borrowing Latin American-style magical realism. To further emphasize intertextuality with folk storytelling, the narrator begins each narrative segment in the first two chapters with the phrase “It is said that…,” highlighting the centrality of folk narrative and its techniques in this novelistic discourse.
From the title onward, the island appears as a central space in the novel, but it is not merely a setting for events. Rather, it resembles a laboratory or a testing ground for anyone capable of reaching it. It grants them everything they aspire to and dream of—but will those who arrive be satisfied with what they obtain and return carrying as much of its treasures as they can, or will they remain greedy for more, until possessing the island’s wealth becomes an end in itself, even if it means becoming prisoners of this remote place? Conflicts erupt among them—both within the group of friends and between them and other outsiders who arrive on the island by chance. The island thus transforms from a dreamlike space into one of dispossession, stripping them of their humanity in exchange for bestowing its cursed treasures, capable of destroying anyone who acquires them—either by provoking human greed or by fueling struggles over power, control, and wealth, despite its excessive abundance and ease of access, lying literally beneath their feet, requiring only that one reach down to pick up gold.
In the shorter third chapter, the game shifts from a game of storytelling to a game of narration, revealing the essence of the novel and its narrative play. Nothing the narrator recounted in the first two chapters is real: there is no island, no boat, no journey. The only reality is the group of friends themselves, and the fact that this entire story was completely fabricated—a rumor that one day swept through the small town, haunting these friends, who are baffled by the tale and its attachment to them. They do not know who invented and spread it throughout the town, until it begins to follow them everywhere—from their workplace to the cafés they frequent—while people question them about the details of the journey, the island, and its treasures. What astonishes them most is how the story portrayed them as so ravenous and greedy in collecting wealth that they drowned in a quagmire of gold on the island, to the point that they never returned to their town to benefit from their newfound status as wealthy treasure owners.
The friends come to realize that if the story is entirely fabricated, then something about it must nonetheless be true. They begin to wonder: why shouldn’t the island actually exist? They decide to set sail in search of it, hoping to find an island matching the story’s description, while improving the terms of the journey: purchasing a motorized boat instead of rowing, preparing sufficient supplies, and remaining conscious of avoiding greed and excessive hoarding. They roam the sea and indeed find the island and its treasures—but they fall into the same trap: the trap of greed, material savagery, and excessive hunger for wealth. The island consumes them, ensnaring them in its riches.
Here, the story appears as a prophecy or a riddle: even if one knows the flaws of an experience in advance, when actually undergoing it, one commits the same mistakes. In the beginning, there is the tale—a fictional, entertaining story—then comes its realization later under nearly identical conditions, as if it were fate, or as if humans are inherently predisposed to committing transgressions and falling into the forbidden. This is where the novel’s game and narrative experimentation emerge: between an original tale that precedes events and occupies most of the narrative, and a subsequent reality that reproduces it with almost the same structure, differing only in minor, inconsequential details. It is as if the world itself is a story that continually reproduces itself, and humanity, since the dawn of creation, endlessly repeats its mistakes.
Here we see the same individuals reproducing the very errors that the story wove around them—not merely the mistakes of ancestors from previous generations. Humans never cease killing, stealing, waging wars, and committing crimes, despite prior knowledge of their catastrophic consequences. These crimes appear as grand narratives that never stop reproducing themselves, with humans merely serving as instruments—used by war, just as they are used by killing and theft—acted upon by a story that precedes and follows them, as if they were eternal tales with no end, even when their outcomes are known in advance. Thus, the novel is imbued with major philosophical and existential questions about humanity and destiny, while also deeply engaged in exploring new narrative techniques that draw on heritage and rework it in ways compatible with modern storytelling. This contrast between the first two chapters and the third, or between the tale and its realization in reality, is what gives the novel its merit and its experimental adventure.
