Domestic bliss | An Evening at Home (1976)
The newlyweds in March 1976 While writing and posting the first several entries of this project, I learned that Ahmed's wife, Nousa, passed away suddenly on May 16, 2024. Nousa helped guide, shape, and protect Ahmed and his legacy for most of his adult life and her sudden absence casts a shadow long enough to darken even this humble project on the other side of the world. Upon his return from London in early 1976, Ahmed Adaweya marries Wanisa Ahmed Atef, better known as Nousa. Their relationship is strained almost from the beginning, as Ahmed is often on the road, performing internationally, while Nousa, according to Ahmed Naji's " The Woman Who Devoured Adaweya ," suffered his absence so severely, her hair began to fall out. The couple would apparently soon separate, with the initial plan of divorcing, before reuniting for good in 1978. This gives Ahmed's second cassette of 1976, An Evening at Home , additional resonance, a hint of bittersweetness, if not irony