A Faculty Member from the Department of Arabic Language Participates in the Fifth Critical Forum of the Union of Writers and Authors of Babylon

Professor Dr. Ahmed Hussein Ali, a faculty member in the Department of Arabic Language, College of Education – University of Samarra, participated in the activities of the Fifth Critical Forum titled: “The Babylonian Novel: Horizons of Communication and Creativity,” organized by the General Union of Writers and Authors in Iraq – Union of Writers and Authors of Babylon, held on 29–30 / 1 / 2026, with the participation of a distinguished group of critics and researchers.

Dr. Ali presented a critical paper entitled: “Dystopia in the Novel ‘That Side of Hell’ by Ali Al-Sabbak.”
The paper examined representations of dystopia as a narrative and aesthetic structure that depicts a disordered world dominated by chaos and moral disintegration. It began with a conceptual grounding of the term as the “bad place” in contrast to utopia, linked to the failure of political and social models to achieve justice and reassurance.

The paper demonstrated that the novel establishes its dystopian world from its very thresholds, particularly the title, which functions as a warning interpretive key, referring to a multifaceted earthly hell and revealing zones of dysfunction within the human experience.

The study focused on analyzing the opening passages and descriptive sections as central tools in shaping the dystopian space, through the employment of nature with its violent elements and the construction of a lexical network based on death, darkness, and fracture. It also addressed the inversion of spatial functions within the novel, where safe places transform into spaces of threat and suffering.

The researcher concluded that the novel presents an integrated dystopian model that combines aesthetic representation with a critical function, transforming violent historical experience into a revealing artistic structure that makes narrative a tool for questioning, warning, and vigilant critical awareness.

#College_of_Education_for_Humanities_University_of_Samarra
#University_of_Samarra