Parliament Underground: The Epic of Power When It Flees the Light

In an age of slogans a decree is issued: the new parliament shall be built underground, and Adam, an architect who loved glass, public squares and natural light, is the first to understand the disaster. On opening day the deputies descend step by step until the doorway to the sky becomes a distant white rectangle and the door closes on a damp chamber with no window behind the podium. Yusuf asks for an amendment to the building itself, Karim objects at every session only to see his words recorded, archived and forgotten, and above their heads the people go on buying bread and looking for work. The narrator questions the microphone, the archive, the elevator and the sun that is forbidden to enter. The book ends with the warning that power which buries truth buries its legitimacy with it, and will one day hear the earth itself telling it to come up.