Sharjah 24: It was great to have Palestinian-Canadian writer Nawal Halawa present at the Arab Cultural Club (ACC) in Sharjah last night for a literary discussion of her work "The Chunt," with critic Dr Ghanim Samarrai. The discussion was moderated by Mustafa Al Hafnawi.

Canadian-based author and women's rights advocate Nawal Halawa discussed her novel about her battle with a mysterious illness that led to four unneeded surgeries!

Dr Ghanim Samarrai, Associate Professor of Translation at the University of Sharjah, Professor of Comparative Literature, critic, and translator, stated that the novel opened up horizons for intertextuality, with a number of writers documenting their suffering, the most famous of whom is the English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Samarrai addressed the author's narrative techniques.

He noted that the novel embodies the alienation and suffering experienced by immigrants in the West, and discussed the novel's other themes, including coping with life in exile and the difficulties that accompany it, the sense of loneliness, and love and family bonding that manifested during times of illness and crisis.