The Boy in The Well: The Story of Prophet Joseph

‘The Boy in The Well’ is the first ever book I’ve written and published. My name is Manal Faris and I’m thirteen years old. The reason I chose to write about Prophet Joseph is many. But mostly because I found his life so exciting, the kind of life you’d read stories about and then dream on going on adventures just like that. And it was inspirational- so many lessons and morals entwined within it. I was learning without even realizing. My role model soon grew to be Prophet Joseph, everything about him interested me. His life, the historical facts and theories, the differences in his story between the religions and everything in between. In his life, after everything he went through, he still made it out alive - he’s a survivor. As a child, he was abused by the people he trusted with his life, and they betrayed that trust. He was sold as a slave, belittled and treated like dirt. His freedom was taken from him. He was tortured in prison - it must have felt like his childhood had come back to haunt him. And yet, he was able to forgive, to live on without grudging. Prophet Joseph did not only survive through it all, he thrived, and that’s what makes him so amazing. I’ve been asked why I chose to write it as fiction. Shouldn’t it be non-fiction to learn from? My answer to that is that direct learning can be tiring - to a lot of people most the time. But reading a story that’s full of adventure is different. It’s fun and it appeals to people. Just like fiction appeals to me. The idea slowly turned into a plan - it took six months for the research and planning. These are some of the references I used for my research. I read books on him, listened to lectures, and the references from the other are important. The TV show called ‘Prophet Joseph’ was what first brought my interest to him. The Quran was the book that I knew had 100% pure fact, and Dawud Wharnsby’s song is one of my all-time favourite.