BOOK | The Eidetic Memory of the Opulence of Narcissism

A title which is full of meaning, significant and suggestive, that transports the reader
to many detailed horizons, and leads to confusion on how to handle it, how to start,
and how to digest the ingeniousness of the concept, as well as how to read
between the lines. Further, she delves deep in the sea of experimentation and complies with comparing the concatenated and distinctive text, prototyped in a unique language which we may consider to be the language of its writer.

There are many indications laden with the spirit of characters portrayed by
acknowledged points, authenticated by a child’s meekness, the sweetness of the intellectual, and the will of the free thinker who does not kowtow in the presence of the immortal, eternal, holy and sacred — the homeland.

It is an experiment which has its profundity in the conscience of an outcry text, and of a
reinforced concatenation in the voyage of time commencing at the whimper of birth and ending upon the demise of the nation’s symbol, the great leader, the martyr Yasser Arafat.

Dr. Awwad has embodied her human, philanthropic, literary and political
experimentation in a book entitled “The Eidetic Memory of the Opulence of Narcissism.” The style of the book is simple and captivating. The reader will have a long pause and will rotate in spacious horizons and encounter innovations laden by the author through
selective terminology and texts. That effort is the outcome of a long and unique
experiment which she has undertaken through years of her maturity to
document, in fascinating words, the voyage of human existence and the human
genesis that are inextricably tied to a country seeking independence, a fighting
man, and a father who is illuminative with wide culture — a leader and symbolic figure who, during his span of life, shaped the Palestinian revolution, the cornerstone of
the voyage of the Palestinian presence on both the national and international levels. Dr. Awwad has utilized her pen to transport him on the absolute wings of love and “Affiliation Permanentium.”

Her pen has overflown with a concise text which does not entail any doubt and is
impossible to decipher. It constitutes a glowing spiritual philosophy in a rolling pin of existence, whose core of discussion is existence itself, to an abyss vision, to a faraway horizon, laying its shade on altitudes of struggle, politics, and other important aspects of our revolutionary history.

She started by dedicating the book to all ambiances of Palestine and to the eternally holy sanctum, through a spiritual outlook mellowed with conscience.

In her introduction, she has unleashed the rein of the concept and personalities in a recorded and portrayed point that belongs to a time that has not yet arrived.

In her first words, a question crops up about the personalities and their recorded and portrayed credit, in an imaginative attitude, with the special quality of delineation.

In the last word, she halts to portray the minute of birth, which is rarely described, and which lies beyond our wakefulness, yet is truly drawn in a philosophical vision and unconsulted instances.

The author starts by describing an episode of her life in the city of Jerusalem where she
was born and grew up, and from the city where her pen was launched with the ink of the spirit — describing her childhood, her heroism, and her first trips to explore its entrances, walls, and schools.

She then portrayed the war of the year 1967 and meticulously described the battles with symbolic and innovative metaphors. Then she related the incidents that followed, from the War of Attrition to the war of 1973.

She also described her childhood in Jerusalem and her exploratory trips, which she annotated with remarkable liveliness, and in Tulkarm, her relation with her grandfather, the prolific poet known as Salem Al-Qus.

She then launched on her educational stages in the city of Jerusalem, and from there she
excelled in her description to continue her higher education in Arab and
international universities, where she studied at Oxford University, McGill University, Al-Azhar University, Beirut University, Ann Arbor University, and other institutions.

She also dexterously featured the experiment of imprisonment in an austere manner, for which she deserves full credit.
On the other hand, the other matters that she hovered around relate to the experimentation of innovation and the promulgation of the logo from Jerusalem to the world.

Dr. Hanan has also drawn a spectacular sui generis portrait of her father, a man
clad with wide culture and endowed with profound vision. He was quite
benevolent in allowing her to join internationally renowned universities. He granted her the freedom through which she could make her in-road into the world, equipped with confidence.

We can see through this eidetic memory that Dr. Hanan is the cherished icon of the
Palestinian leadership. Abu Jihad accorded her his absolute confidence, as did the leader Yasser Arafat. She was his beloved protégée and represented him in international official circles. He cared for her until his final days.

She was in close touch with the Palestinian leaderships, irrespective of their diversified attitudes. She bore the Fatah message and the message of Palestine, roaming across all parts with honesty and dedication.
Her words carried a special feeling, channelled into the Herculean Palestinian
revolution and its great men, bestowing upon them the quality of angels.

In her revolutionary role, she carried out her duties and political mission in representing Palestine and its president in major international circles and at meetings of heads of state.
She described Iraq and her participation in the Al-Mirbad Festival, and her first meeting
with President Arafat in Kuwait. She also described Tunis and her first visit with
President Arafat, as well as her visits to Arab leaders in his company. Further, she participated in significant political and cultural programmes she undertook across Arab countries and the world.

She portrayed the return of President Arafat, the Palestinian cadre, and the building of the state as a special innovation.

Dr. Hanan excelled in the coinage of her texts, which were laden with wrath and yearning in describing the Palestinian cause during the siege, and in depicting the period of hardship endured by President Arafat and the Palestinian people. She shaped, out of all his good qualities, a complete portrait of a man endowed with unique capabilities, ending with a painful farewell journey.

She concluded her book with a significant philosophical endpoint, summarizing the meaning of philosophical creativity.
From the ego to the profundity of Narcissus, she shaped her personality in the delineation of dramatic experimentation, drawing with her pen — and the quill pen of the artist — the portrayal of the elevation of yearning for the absolute, devoted homeland.
And the word at the beginning of genesis is the formation of Palestine.

The author paused in her memories upon the departure of the Palestinian leader, the martyr Yasser Arafat… the pen ceased, and time stopped through the voyage of eternity.
Because she hovered on the wings of dignity, hope, and triumph, and journeyed in absolute perambulation towards justice and liberty. She also made a supplicative silent stop at the agony emanating from the extremely painful final farewell.

In conclusion, Dr. Awwad wished this book to be ipsissimis verbis — a recorded text of
the embellishment of the revolution and her eternal leaders. Furthermore, it is the route of struggle and sacrifice which calls for nothing but descriptive innovation, the elevation of the spirit, and sublime words.