‘Statues of Genies’… Love in Videogames

‘Statues of Genies’… Love in Videogames
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‘Statues of Genies’… Love in Videogames

‘Statues of Genies’… Love in Videogames

In the novel "Statues of Genies" by Egyptian author Samar Nour, boundaries between reality and weirdness fade, and the world looks like if it’s gradually turning into a videogame, in which protagonists live their triumphs and defeats according to the rules of this game.

The absence of "Dunia" seems to be the biggest event that we hear about at the beginning of the story. The absence of this protagonist remains an enigma that keep the memory in an active mode, and searching her is almost the only justification to recover the lives of the novel’s other protagonists.

The technique used in this novel, released by Al Mahrousa Center for Publishing, is similar to puzzles, where the reader can build their own perceptions about Dunia based on the stories of her co-stars Omar and the genie. Narration of the stories are reciprocal, "what Omar says" and "what the genie says", and both stars use the pronoun "I" to speak about the impact of Dunia’s absence, and her influence even when she’s gone.

The story

Distraction dominates the personality of Omar from the beginning; he walks streets just because he imagines the face of Dunia, who disappeared with her dreams, which influence her view of the world and reality. He contemplates the faces of people walking in the Sayeda Zeinab area, recalling the paintings of artist Abdel Hadi al-Gazzar and his magical faces, folklore, and fantasies, which Dunia liked. Omar walks in the streets, checking people’s faces like if he’s looking for her face. "I was looking for humans who come out from the paintings of al-Gazzar’s magical phase, filled with folkloric symbols and dominated by superstition that give you an inner frightening feeling."

While searching for Dunia, questions about his fragile life roam in his head. Since she disappeared, he has suffered from an unknown disease that surrounds him and increases his fragility, which pushed him towards his family again, seeking healing. While with his family, Omar observes their social complexities, unable to take a stance from their weirdness; he approaches his family members, mostly his father, an Alzheimer’s patient who still watches old classic movies and laugh deeply. Although he’s surrounded by his family, he still looks for Dunia, whose cotton candy-like scent still accompany him despite her disappearance, triggering questions about the fate of love, and the craze of loss.

The philosophy of games

Videogames are a key element in Dunia’s world. According to Omar’s story, Dunia is a game developer who dreams of designing a videogame and selling it. The missing girl practiced her passion in this field on her page on YouTube, where she put her voice in games. These games are symbols that bring us closer to the drama of life, which repelled Dunia and pushed her to the world videogames, where she found fantasy and utopian justice.

The other main character in this novel is the genie. But in this novel, he doesn’t have the super, scary powers we read about in the "One Thousand and One Nights". In contrast, he weakly recalls the story of Dunia since she was a child, and tells his story, describing himself as the only fugitive from his species. "I lived alone on Earth. I didn’t know what happened to my parents until Dunia told me."

He also narrates the stories Dunia used to tell him since she was a child. "Stories, stories. All I know is just stories around which a whole world can be built, and I don’t know from where to start. Probably, I am just an idea created by a miserable girl in a night of fear, a girl that lives in me and in Omar," the genie says.

Virtual fate

The submission of Omar and the genie to the existence of Dunia opens the novel on bigger interpretations of the idea of the girl controlling the lives of other protagonists as a game maker and a character creator, and not as a lost girlfriend. Even in her absence, she seems more dominating in the narrative than Omar and the genie, whose roles shrink from protagonists to narrators who move in Dunia’s mazes. This takes us from the enigma of Dunia’s disappearance to assuming that we are watching a world that Dunia controls through her game, "The Statuses of Genies", waiting to be bought and produced by a company.

In the 194-page novel, we can’t confirm whether the life of those three protagonists is real. Their strange world suggests they are stuck in a videogame, or that they are virtual characters used by Dunia in her own game. But in the end, the reader discovers that the story was all about a videogame Dunia developed and sold to a company.



Gaza Heritage and Destruction on Display in Paris

This photograph shows antiques on display during the installation of the archaeological heritage exhibition "Treasures saved from Gaza - 5000 years of history" (Tresors sauves de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire) at the Institut du Monde Arabe, in Paris, on March 31, 2025. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)
This photograph shows antiques on display during the installation of the archaeological heritage exhibition "Treasures saved from Gaza - 5000 years of history" (Tresors sauves de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire) at the Institut du Monde Arabe, in Paris, on March 31, 2025. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)
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Gaza Heritage and Destruction on Display in Paris

This photograph shows antiques on display during the installation of the archaeological heritage exhibition "Treasures saved from Gaza - 5000 years of history" (Tresors sauves de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire) at the Institut du Monde Arabe, in Paris, on March 31, 2025. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)
This photograph shows antiques on display during the installation of the archaeological heritage exhibition "Treasures saved from Gaza - 5000 years of history" (Tresors sauves de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire) at the Institut du Monde Arabe, in Paris, on March 31, 2025. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)

A new exhibition opening in Paris on Friday showcases archaeological artifacts from Gaza, once a major commercial crossroads between Asia and Africa, whose heritage has been ravaged by Israel's ongoing onslaught.

Around a hundred artifacts, including a 4,000-year-old bowl, a sixth-century mosaic from a Byzantine church and a Greek-inspired statue of Aphrodite, are on display at the Institut du Monde Arabe.

The rich and mixed collection speaks to Gaza's past as a cultural melting pot, but the show's creators also wanted to highlight the contemporary destruction caused by the war, sparked by Hamas's attack on Israel in October 2023, AFP reported.

"The priority is obviously human lives, not heritage," said Elodie Bouffard, curator of the exhibition, which is titled "Saved Treasures of Gaza: 5,000 Years of History".

"But we also wanted to show that, for millennia, Gaza was the endpoint of caravan routes, a port that minted its own currency, and a city that thrived at the meeting point of water and sand," she told AFP.

One section of the exhibition documents the extent of recent destruction.

Using satellite image, the UN's cultural agency UNESCO has already identified damage to 94 heritage sites in Gaza, including the 13th-century Pasha's Palace.

Bouffard said the damage to the known sites as well as treasures potentially hidden in unexplored Palestinian land "depends on the bomb tonnage and their impact on the surface and underground".

"For now, it´s impossible to assess."

The attacks by Hamas militants on Israel in 2023 left 1,218 dead. In retaliation, Israeli operations have killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and devastated the densely populated territory.

The story behind "Gaza´s Treasures" is inseparable from the ongoing wars in the Middle East.

At the end of 2024, the Institut du Monde Arabe was finalising an exhibition on artifacts from the archaeological site of Byblos in Lebanon, but Israeli bombings on Beirut made the project impossible.

"It came to a sudden halt, but we couldn´t allow ourselves to be discouraged," said Bouffard.

The idea of an exhibition on Gaza´s heritage emerged.

"We had just four and a half months to put it together. That had never been done before," she explained.

Given the impossibility of transporting artifacts out of Gaza, the Institut turned to 529 pieces stored in crates in a specialized Geneva art warehouse since 2006. The works belong to the Palestinian Authority, which administers the West Bank.

The Oslo Accords of 1993, signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel, helped secure some of Gaza's treasures.

In 1995, Gaza´s Department of Antiquities was established, which oversaw the first archaeological digs in collaboration with the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem (EBAF).

Over the years, excavations uncovered the remains of the Monastery of Saint Hilarion, the ancient Greek port of Anthedon, and a Roman necropolis - traces of civilizations spanning from the Bronze Age to Ottoman influences in the late 19th century.

"Between Egypt, Mesopotamian powers, and the Hasmoneans, Gaza has been a constant target of conquest and destruction throughout history," Bouffard noted.

In the 4th century BC, Greek leader Alexander the Great besieged the city for two months, leaving behind massacres and devastation.

Excavations in Gaza came to a standstill when Hamas took power in 2007 and Israel imposed a blockade.

Land pressure and rampant building in one of the world's most densely populated areas has also complicated archaeological work.

And after a year and a half of war, resuming excavations seems like an ever-more distant prospect.

The exhibition runs until November 2, 2025.