It happens sometimes to writers that they draw or paint on the margins of their work, the opposite is also known, the literary attempts of the painter. It is rare, however, when both of these fields are treated professionally by the self same person. It is just such dualism that we find in Thurayya Al-Baqsami. Enough to state that the very same hand that wrote Cellar Candles – for which she was awarded a prize by the Kuwaiti Foundation for Scientific Development – illustrated the said volume. The illustrations are in her intention a supplement to the text, creativity equal and accompanying the written word. At times one may be under the impression that Thurayya competes between drawing and the word.

The pictorial nature of the prose and the factual graphicness that accompanies the drawings results in the fact that these two elements change as if their functions: the text becomes an illumination of the illustration, while it too becomes the premonition of the image painted with a word.

Thurayya Al-Baqsami has overcome with her work many barriers not only those connected with being a woman-artist, but also those linked to the tradition of visual art within the Arab world. There are numerous throwbacks to elements from the past; she reaches for ancient cultures, as well as making use of the living cultural customs of the present. On the example of the phenomenon of her creative personality one may conjecture as to the role her creativity fulfils in relation to the actual Arab world outlook, and a wider consciousness on the scale of civilisation per se.