A City That Listens to Stones: Writing from the Other Side of the Mirror
Wail Ihsain departs from traditional narrative in his book “A City That Listens to Stones,” venturing into a realm of open contemplative writing where the story is not the hero, nor is the character the focal point, but the question instead. It is a question of the self and memory, with the city as a broken mirror reflecting identity. This work is neither a short story collection, nor a novel, nor purely aesthetic poetry; rather, it is a literary-existential hybrid that eludes classification and intersects with contemporary philosophical self-writing trends.
From the very first pages, it becomes clear that the author does not seek to provide answers, but aims to disrupt reading reassurance and dismantle the reader’s certainty regarding the concept of self, through inquiries such as: “Is there anything stable that we can call the self? Or are we merely interactions that renew themselves in moments that constantly change?” This tension between permanence and transformation accompanies the text until its conclusion, forming an open structure based on fragmentation rather than cohesion.
The language here does not simply describe; it flows deeply, presenting sentences not constructed for clarification but rather to listen inwardly: “The mirror, like the question, does not give you your image, but what you fear to see.” We find ourselves in a writing that slips through the cracks, digging into buried identities and engaging with absence more than presence.
The city—serving as a reflective self—holds a unique symbolic center in the book. Melilla, Fez, Malaga are not merely places but living entities that speak through stone, embodying the questions of the self as if they were a public internal mirror; when you enter it, you do not just enter a city, but cross the threshold of memory… memories that do not belong to you, yet steal you away. Within this interaction, the self becomes, as described, an open project that can only be defined by its relation to what surrounds it, not by its centrism around itself.
The most significant achievement of this book is the destruction of the traditional ego’s centrality. The speaker is not a single voice but a “composite voice,” fleeing from certainty, confessing that he does not narrate but “trembles,” that he does not write to be understood but to survive, even if temporarily… “I search not to find but to confirm that the question is more precious than the answer.”
“A City That Listens to Stones” is a creative work written from the heart of defect, transforming aimlessness into existential value. It is not a book to be read, but to be inhabited, felt—so that it continues to work within us like a stone thrown into the well of consciousness.
