Manifestations of Intertextuality and the Worlds of Metaphysics and Mysticism in the Novel Forbidden Paradise by Yahya Al-Qaisi

After releasing his first novel, B?b al-??ra [Door of confusion] in 2006, Jordanian novelist Yahya al-Qaisi occupied himself with a novelistic project infused with spiritual and mystical worlds and haunted by conundrums of a philosophical and existential nature, as well as little-spoken-of human questions related to the worlds beyond and the unseen. This endeavor occupied him still more deeply and fruitfully in his later novels, Abn?? al-Sam?? [Children of heaven] (2010), al-Firdaws al-Mu?arram [Forbidden paradise] (2016), Ba`d al-?ay?h bi Khu?wa [A step after life] (2018), and ?ayaw?t sa?iqa (Lives beyond the depths] (2020). As will be observed by the astute reader, Forbidden Paradise forms an open narrative structure that transcends its boundaries to interact with characters from the previous novel, Children of Heaven, its narrators and its scenes, by reintroducing them into the later text, Forbidden Paradise, in such a way as to generate new narrative and semantic contexts. At the same time, the novel invites readers to contemplate the existence of gaps left in the earlier work (Children of Heaven), which are then filled by the narrator/narrators of the later work (Forbidden Paradise). In so doing, the narrators establish a text which interacts with its predecessor while at the same time going beyond it. The metaphysical and mystical themes in both novels are also closely related and overlapping. Forbidden Paradise adopts a central vision which is expressed through an attempt to disrupt and dismantle the prevailing cognitive awareness, be it individual or collective, then to construct a different and paradoxical awareness by raising new questions about these metaphysical worlds and their manifestations as perceived in the culture of the individual and society, then presenting them in a narrative discourse which is itself paradoxical in its characters, events, times, places, and narrative styles. This approach, which relies on narrative discourse analysis mechanisms from a structural and intertextual perspective, attempts a reading of the novel Forbidden Paradise in its most significant narrative manifestations, as illustrated in: - Reformulation of metaphysical and mystical themes and their relationship to different awareness. - External and internal intertextuality. - Novelistic scenes and narrative paths. - Narrators and narrative styles.