Khaberni - The writer Jalal Bargouti celebrated at the cultural forum in the Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation, last Monday, the launch of his short story collection "A Lean Clothed by a Lame Fat Man", amid notable presence from the literary community, writers, and stakeholders.
The launch was attended by the author, the former Minister of Culture writer Basma Al-Nsour, and the critic and academic Dr. Omar Al-Amiri, with the event presented and hosted by the director of the public library at the foundation, Engineer Nizar Al-Hamoud.
In his new short story collection "A Lean Clothed by a Lame Fat Man", Bargouti explores the meaning of human existence in a turbulent world where reality intertwines with the bizarre, and the mundane with the philosophical.
The characters in the collection, recently released by the Egyptian "Dar Al-Shorouq", are ordinary, living simple lives, like the employee, the neighbor, the soldier, the solitary man, and the journalist. Yet, their daily lives suddenly fracture when these individuals face a harsh moment of realization that reveals the fragility of their reality, transforming the narrative from a social tale to an existential experience that examines the meaning of isolation, fear, and delayed awareness.
During the event, Bargouti highlighted that this collection represents his second endeavor in the art of the short story, which is based on capturing everyday fleeting details, interpreting moments that seem ordinary on the surface but entail deep questions. He noted that these stories emerge from the street, from the pulsating life we live today, where social and cultural transformations are accelerating, casting heavy shadows on humans, pushing them to confront themselves and re-ask their significant questions about meaning and existence.
For her part, Al-Nsour affirmed that Jalal Bargouti "masterfully grasps in this rich collection the elements of short story art in terms of the economical, compact, simple, and profound language that escapes the excess of narrative, explanation, and justification, and in terms of the unity of time and place in which the characters, granted by the writer a vast free space to express themselves, their thoughts, views, sorrows, fears, obsessions, dreams, breakdowns, disappointments, psychological disorders, and deep existential anxiety, were also allowed to ask life's difficult questions, and the specter of death was a unifying thread for all the stories."
Dr. Al-Amiri, in his critical reading, noted that "A Lean Clothed by a Lame Fat Man" is the title of Jalal Bargouti's short story collection, which is also the name of one of the stories within. Bargouti chose it as the title for the entire collection, possibly because it encapsulates an idea that unites the twelve stories.
He stated that "the writer successfully employed parallels both artistically and significantly; they did not come disconnected from the narrative core in the stories but formed a dialectical alternation between the threshold and the narrative text, through the flow of their meanings, and their organic, semiotic, and aesthetic attachment to the narrative texts, both in technical and thematic dimensions."
It is noteworthy that the Jordanian writer Jalal Bargouti is considered one of the prominent contemporary Arab literary voices, combining philosophical depth with social realism in his works. He starts from the human concern, showcasing the major transformations that have occurred to both the place and people in Jordan and the Arab world, with a particular focus on themes of alienation and loss of identity amidst the fluctuations of modernity and politics, rendering his texts relevant beyond local boundaries to speak to an Arab audience everywhere.
Bargouti's novel "The Leaflets of the Scribe" earned the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2021, his short story collection "The Earthquake" received the Roux Bin Zayed Alzayani Prize for Creativity in 2012, and his novel "The Guillotine of the Dreamer" was awarded the Rafika Doudin Prize for Narrative Creativity in 2013. His novel "Fire Snakes" won the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel in 2015, and his novel "Ladies of the Five Senses" made it to the longlist of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2019, and his narrative biography reached the shortlist for the Sheikh Zayed Book Award in 2024. Additionally, the English translation of his novel "The Leaflets of the Scribe" was longlisted for the Banipal Prize for Arabic Literature Translated into English in 2024, and in 2023, His Majesty King Abdullah II bestowed upon him the Order of Excellence for his cultural efforts on both the Jordanian and Arab stages.
Additionally, alongside being a poet and novelist, he worked in Jordanian journalism, chaired numerous cultural bodies and magazines, and prepared many Ph.D. and master's theses, as well as peer-reviewed research and books on his narrative experience. He has been honored in various cultural forums in Jordan and the Arab world, and has been a jury member for numerous Jordanian and Arab prizes.
