Hart has degrees in English literature and creative writing, and she focuses her writing on literary themes. In this essay, Hart explores the drama that El-Bisatie so skillfully hides beneath his seemingly simplistic text.

Mohamed El-Bisatie's stories, such as his "A Conversation from the Third Floor," are often described as paintings. This description aptly fits El-Bisatie, who likes to create scenes to which only the barest form of narration is applied. In other words, his narration is used to fill in the setting as a painter might use a brush to paint a picture. His sparse narrative is journalistic, in a sense, making El-Bisatie appear more as a reporter than a storyteller. His stories are told from what he sees, not from what he feels, and what the reader must do, in order to fully grasp and appreciate what is going on in the story, is pay...