The Gardeners

Set in the year 2084 following a devastating Third World War, this novel paints a chilling, high-concept dystopian future where sovereign states have collapsed, giving rise to "The Corporation"—a mega-conglomerate of tech, energy, and pharmaceutical giants. Under this hyper-surveilled system, humanity is strictly categorized into "productive resources" or "redundant human waste," reducing memory, identity, and personal history into commodified data. The narrative centers on a family fractured by trauma in the southern village of Wafra: a mother surrenders herself to the Corporation to save her injured son, moving North, while the father and daughter, Habbaba, remain in the agrarian South. Within this enclave, "The Gardeners" form a radical resistance—refusing corporate servitude through subsistence farming and oral storytelling, believing that written text dries out memory while spoken lore keeps human truth alive. The novel presents an incisive exploration of survival, artificial intelligence, and resistance against technocratic dominance.

It offers a thought-provoking and atmospheric Arabic dystopian novel complete with internal artwork by Zahra Al-Mahdi, masterfully weaving high-concept science fiction with profound philosophical questions about tech-monopoly, memory, and resistance.

Ideal for fans of speculative and dystopian fiction, readers interested in post-humanism, AI, and digital colonization, and anyone captivaytely drawn to stories exploring human resistance against totalizing technocratic regimes.