Amman, March 31 — Jordanian writer Jalal Barjas celebrated the launch of his latest short story collection “A Thin Man Possessed by a Lame, Obese One”, on Monday evening at the Cultural Forum of the Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation. The event was attended by a distinguished gathering of writers, intellectuals, and cultural figures.
The launch featured the participation of former Minister of Culture and writer Basma Al-Nsour, as well as critic and academic Dr. Omar Al‑Omari. The event was introduced and moderated by Engineer Nizar Al‑Hmod, Director of the Foundation’s Public Library.
In his new collection, “A Thin Man Possessed by a Lame, Obese One”, Barjas explores the meaning of human existence in a turbulent world where reality intertwines with the surreal, and the everyday intersects with the philosophical.
Recently published by Egypt’s Dar Al‑Shorouk, the collection presents stories centered on ordinary characters living outwardly simple lives, a civil servant, a neighbor, a soldier, a lonely man, and a journalist. Yet their daily routines are abruptly unsettled when each encounters a harsh moment of realization that exposes the fragility of the reality they inhabit. At that point, the stories move beyond social narration to become existential experiences that explore themes of isolation, fear, and a dawning awareness.
Speaking during the event, Barjas noted that this collection marks his second foray into the short story genre an art form rooted in capturing fleeting everyday details and giving voice to moments that appear ordinary on the surface but are laden with profound questions. He explained that the stories emerge from the street and from the pulse of contemporary life, shaped by rapid social and cultural transformations that cast heavy shadows over the individual, compelling them to confront themselves and to revisit their deepest questions about meaning and existence.
Basma Al-Nsour described the collection as a rich and accomplished work, highlighting Barjas’s mastery of the short story form. She praised his economical and condensed language—simple yet profound—which avoids excess narration, explanation, and justification. She also pointed to the unity of time and place within which the characters move, noting that the writer grants them a vast, open, and free space to express their inner worlds: their thoughts, visions, sorrows, fears, obsessions, dreams, fractures, disappointments, psychological disturbances, and deep existential anxiety. Through these characters, she added, Barjas allows difficult life questions to surface, with death remaining a unifying thread running through all the stories.
Al-Nsour further noted the collection’s distinctive and intelligent blending—and fluid movement—between the surreal and realistic narrative styles, as well as between the irrational and the real. She also drew attention to the author’s evident engagement with psychology and his skillful portrayal of contemporary psychological conditions such as obsessive‑compulsive disorder, psychosis, depression, and schizophrenia.
In his critical reading, Dr. Omar Al‑Omari explained that “A Thin Man Possessed by a Lame, Obese One” serves both as the title of the collection and of one of its stories. Barjas, he suggested, chose it as the overarching title because it encapsulates an idea that brings together the twelve stories that make up the collection.
Al‑Omari noted that the author succeeds in employing parallels in a nuanced artistic and semantic manner. These parallels are not detached from the narrative core of the stories but instead form a dynamic relationship between the title and the narrative text, as meaning flows and becomes organically and aesthetically intertwined with the stories on both artistic and thematic levels.
Jalal Barjas is widely regarded as one of the most prominent contemporary Arab literary voices. His work is distinguished by its ability to combine philosophical depth with social realism. Rooted in human concerns, his writing examines the profound transformations affecting place and people in Jordan and the Arab world, with a particular focus on themes of alienation and the loss of identity amid the shifting conditions of modernity and politics—allowing his texts to transcend local boundaries and speak to Arab readers everywhere.
Barjas’s novel “The Bookseller’s Notebooks” won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (the Arabic Booker) in 2021. His short story collection “The Earthquake” received the Rukhs Bin Zayed Al-Uzaizi Prize for Creativity in 2012, while his novel “Guillotine of the Dreamer” won the Rifqa Dudin Prize for Narrative Creativity in 2013. His novel “Snakes of Hell” won the Katara Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2015, and “Ladies of the Five Senses” was longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2019. His fictional autobiography was shortlisted for the Sheikh Zayed Book Award in 2024, and the English translation of “The Bookseller’s Notebooks” was longlisted for the Banipal Prize for Translated Arabic Literature in the same year. In 2023, His Majesty King Abdullah II awarded him the Medal of Distinction in recognition of his cultural contributions at both the Jordanian and Arab levels.
In addition to his work as a poet and novelist, Barjas has been active in Jordanian journalism and has chaired several cultural institutions and magazines. Numerous master’s theses, doctoral dissertations, and peer‑reviewed studies have examined his literary works, and several books have been published on his narrative experience. He has been honored at many Jordanian and Arab cultural forums and has served as a jury member for several literary awards across the region.