Mohammed Hasan Alwan quotes
1979 – · Saudi Arabia, 21st century · novelist, short-story writer and cultural administrator
About Mohammed Hasan Alwan
Born in Riyadh in 1979, Alwan studied abroad (MBA in Oregon) and began publishing fiction in the 2000s. His psychologically and historically minded novels earned the Arab World Institute’s Prix de la Littérature Arabe (2015) for Al-Qundus and the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (2017) for Mawt saghir. From 2019 he has held senior cultural-administration roles in Saudi institutions.
Works: Saqf al-Kifaya (2002); Sophia (2004); Al-Qundus — The Beaver (2011); Mawt saghir — A Small Death (2016)
Quotes
“If we want to strangle an old love, we must constantly mock it”
Source: القندس (The Beaver), Dar al‑Saqi, 2011 · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The sentence is attributed to Mohammed Hasan Alwan and appears in citation listings as a passage from the novel القندس.
- What remains uncertain
- Attribution is verified in secondary quotation sources and book extracts, but no page‑numbered primary‑text scan was located to give a precise pagination reference.
Alwan captures a defensive trick: mocking a past love to strip it of its power. In The Beaver the line shows how ridicule is used to build emotional barriers — not to erase longing but to contain and quiet its influence.