Fatma Youssef Al-Ali

A Kuwaiti writer writes articles, stories and novels.
She has an activity in the female social work and the childs issues.
She has a diploma of Arabic Literature and prepares for Masters Degree.
She started practicing the literacy work at the age of sixteen.
She has many writings such as Faces in the Crowd, Blood on the Moons face and Abdulla Al-Salem - A Man survives but not died.
A lot of her works have been turned into broadcasting and TV drama.
She worked for Al-Rai Al-am newspaper, weekly Nahda magazine and worked for Al-Qabas newspaper as well.
She is a member of Kuwaiti Reporters Association, Human Rights Organization and Amnesty International.

Sleeping from Her face is a Nation by: Fatma Al-Ali

The author portrays a kind of a traditional marriage. A female student admires a famous professor, then married him. She was dreaming of being happy with an ideal marriage from her own viewpoint. She has everything available in her life, but she is not satisfied at all as she feels being treated as anything in her husbands daily life. We find him only interested in their sexual relation, as she becomes only familiar with doing so. In this selection, I believe that this sort of symbolism refers to a lot of similar relations spreading in this community and what women feel towards this impact. Losing true emotions and sensations becomes something regular and familiar in this society. The author succeeded to display a factual image of what is happening around us.

Wadhas Eyes: By Fatma Yousef Al-Ali

This short story is included among other eight short stories written by our author, Fatma Yousef Al-Ali, as all these formulated in one book called Blood on the Moons Face.

Wadhas Eyes is the last one included in this collection. Here, the author portrays a man called Hamad Al-Mezel standing in a certain place as he is using to doing this all the time. He argued with his son who studies in an intermediate school. Suddenly, we find him in the market once more as he is using to doing this. He is so attached to Wadha as he likes to see her eyes all the time and no one else but her. This man is one of the markets guards who has been watching this place for more than thirty years. Now he catches a little boy, a hungry one but he gave him some money to feed himself.

This man likes now to get his own wife, more attentive and he thinks to do this through Wadha, his own beloved since childhood. It is an innocent pure love. He begins to apply his plan by telling a fake story about the girls school in front of his kinds and wife at dinner.

He is ready now to go out to the same place but before doing this, he comes across his kids photos. He goes to his place as usual but there is something different this time. There are some soldiers treat him badly.

He gets surprised to see these soldiers break into shops and breaks doors. Soldiers begin to loot everything here and there. They even seize Wadha and in a way of saving her, they kill him and he cant do anything at all. For our astonishment, Wadha is a puppet, a doll, a small one.

In fact, the author portrays a very simple, but indirect image of the flagrant Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait. The image she portrays misled the readers at the beginning but she succeeded in giving a good metaphone represented in the doll. She even succeeded in giving a very simplified example of torture prevailed during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. She focused on the simple life practiced by Kuwaiti people as seen in the guard, Hamad Al-Mezel who helped the poor boy he caught, but he could do nothing in front of the aggressors, the Iraqis of course, being dishonest and flagrant.