Fiction
The Mirror of the Lady Mo
by Noha Sawky Hussein
Can one consider his/her life partner's eyes as a mirror that reflects their trueimage? If not, what shall we do? We live in this novel the last three months ofa traditional marriage from the point of view of its heroes. In each chapter, amirror is broken for another to be made, so that hopefully we can see the imagemore clearly.This novel is about a married couple in a traditional marriage with 3 kids. Monerais 40 years old; she is a stay-at-home mom who is good at cooking, which iswhy she is overweight. At the beginning of the novel, she is shocked when herhusband, Magdy, tells her that he wants a divorce. When she pressed to knowthe reason, she discovered that this is a precondition from his intended futurewife. She acts calmly and asks for a 3-month transitional time before finalizingthe divorce, for the sake of their children, and Magdy agrees.Monera feels relatively free to do whatever she wants, so she went to havebreakfast in a nearby Mall, and there she is asked to fill in a survey aboutEgyptian food and cooking. Monera completed the survey relentlessly, andwhen she signed her name “Mo Nera Salah” the person in charge asked her ifshe is related to “Mo Salah”, so she felt flattered and went back home. John,the survey guy, called Monera after a couple of days and asked her to try outsome cooking pans in his restaurant kitchen as a type of promotion. Monerareluctantly agreed, and she ended up signing a contract with John’s Englishfood company to film cooking series with them. On the other hand, Magdy’ssecond marriage collapsed, while Monera’s life was getting better and better.Magdy felt that he should get back to Monera, but then he discovered hercooking contract and that she got an offer from the English company to travelto London on their expenses she and their children. Only then, things took anunexpected turn.
