Jinns and ghouls, guardians and tricksters, wizards and possessors, Ahmad Nabil’s Hidden Companions is a testimonial archive of Palestinian folklore.
In the Old City of Jerusalem, a man wakes every day to find coins under his pillow, a young lonely girl strikes up a friendship with a spectral voice, a veiled woman changes form to delude ordinary senses, a petite girl in all black breaches a group of young girls returning from a wedding, a goat and her two kids
draw an unsuspecting young man into a hidden room, a group of curious boys conjure the spirit of Marx. Here, the Unseen beings are a natural element of everyday life.
With rich, vivid descriptions and stunning illustrations, Ahmad Nabil weaves a literary account of paranormal stories collected from the Old City of Jerusalem. Held, passed around in whisper networks, and relayed over conversations, these stories come to symbolize a part of Palestine’s intangible heritage. Thrilling and unsettling in equal parts, Hidden Companions traces a captivating world largely unseen in popular narrative.
Ahmad Nabil is a visual artist and researcher in the fields of Arab and Islamic mythology and paranormal phenomena. He focuses on their relationship to land, natural resources, and their integration into intangible heritage for the preservation of land and collective memory. In 2015, he founded The Fiction Council in Jerusalem.
Please note: this book is in Arabic language.
Softcover, 8.27"x5.85"x0.5", 136 pages, November 2024.