Sumerian butterflies in Tangier

Naeem Abdel Mahlahel's novel (Sumerian Butterflies in Tangier) intertwines time and place, past and present, north and south, as well as wars and their tragedies that have continued for decades and still refuse to let up! Love transcends the wounds of alienation and travel to distant lands. The novel's title also transports us from the marshes of southern Iraq to the Amazigh people of Morocco, all the way to the far north of the globe, Oslo, the capital of Norway.
In the first chapter, entitled "The Gate of God and the Gate of Saffron," the novelist quotes Gaston Bachelard, who says, "There is no doubt that paradise remains a vast library."
In this chapter, in which the novelist Naeem Abdel Mahlahel opens his novel, he emphasizes two times and several places that bear difficult and painful events, and draws comparisons between these times and the characters in the novel, which carries themes of pain, separation, death, travel, love, nostalgia, and longing for place. After an interesting and beautiful conversation with his friend Sirwan, when orders came to advance towards the Penjwin Basin for military missions, the novelist explains how he saw the breathtaking beauty and attractive nature of that basin adjacent to the border with Iran. This place has witnessed many battles throughout the years of the Iran-Iraq war, and many innocent victims were taken who were forced into this war. Sirwan says that this place is called the Gate of God and the Gate of Saffron. At night, it emits a light in the form of a golden thread, the source and secret of which people do not know!