Asfouriya

Al-Asfouriya is a Levantine word meaning the mental hospital, and the hero is the professor who recounts the history of the Arab nation in a clinical therapy session to the psychiatrist. Here, Al-Qusaibi wanted to say that the mental hospital is the only place in this world where sane people can speak.

In this novel, Al-Qusaibi blended local dialects and criticized the inferiority complex of Arab intellectuals and elites, the problem of power, and other chronic Arab problems with unprecedented boldness.

The novel ends with the psychiatrist's madness and Al-Qusaibi's escape to other worlds—a mad ending for a mad world.