IPAF 2024 Longlist.

Just before turning 40, Fouad decides to get rid of 30 years’ worth of diaries in an effort to free himself of the past and start a new life. However, in browsing through the journals, he instead embarks upon a final writing project. Years go by and the project is uncompleted, until a group of ghosts arrive to lend their assistance, inhabiting Fouad’s mind and seeming to know him better than he knows himself. The ghost narrators transform the raw material of the diaries into a vivid portrait of people, times, and events, shining a light on the pivotal moments in an ordinary person’s life, while in the background the nation of Egypt looms large.