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K for kitab

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At the 20th Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, Youssef Rakha wonders if the United Arab Emirates might end up being the Arabs’ answer to an international publishing hub

After turning one of the Arab world’s worst read cities into a vibrant literary venue for five days, the 20th Abu Dhabi International Book Fair (ADIBF, 2-7 March) folded quietly on Monday 7 March. It was followed by the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature (10-13 March), organised by Magrudy’s Bookshops and any number of sponsors in Dubai – that slightly better read New York of the Gulf where the Arabic language is alas all but completely absent.

The Emirates Festival requires separate coverage, but it is worth mentioning in the context of ADBIF in that it shared with that event a profoundly multicultural atmosphere. By the time ADBIF closed, even the predominance of Arabic books there had not reduced the overriding sense that here, finally, was a international, multilingual publishing event or series of events drawing together variously important figures from the four corners of the global village.

Neither bang nor whimper marked the end of what seemed like a separate and self-contained world within the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC), an isolated space of glass and concrete on the outskirts of the city proper – recently completed by the addition of a high-rise corporate-style hotel, ensuring not only accommodation but taxi transportation from the fair grounds. With the vast majority of the fair’s non-resident patrons already gone by Friday, business proceeded as usual until it came gradually to a halt.

Initially the fair had proceeded alongside a major gun show, subjecting unsuspecting bibliophiles who entered by the wrong gate to unnecessary, airport-like security. Deceptively low-key from the outside, ADIBF was at least as busy as the killing carnival next door.

Activity centred on the by now haloed Discussion and Poetry Forums and the Kitab Sofa, where writers (sometimes attended to by television crews) performed to small, inevitably distracted audiences. Interviews, readings, and discussions often involving more than one writer shed light on an enormous motley of subjects, from the history of the translation of Indian literature into Arabic to whether and to what extent contemporary American literature can engage with postmodern tendencies firmly embedded into consumer culture.

Highlight appearances ranged from flash-in-the-pan celebrities (Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, and the Algerian novelist Ahlam Mustaghanmi, for example) to award winners and writers whose relative fame may be better deserved from the literary standpoint (Adam Haslett, Yann Martel, Amit Chaudri, Pankaj Mishra, Alawiyya Sobh, Ibrahim Al-Koni, Sinan Antoon). There was a spaceman advertising new translation technologies, several dozen illuminated manuscripts (Islamic and otherwise) from various Europe-based dealers, and a Show Kitchen Programme featuring the authors of cookbooks demonstrating their recipes live – perhaps the most popular fixture.

For a moment on Saturday, with the Kerala Islamic scholar Sheikh Aboobacker Ahmad drawing a huge crowd to the Kitab Sofa in what seemed like a misplaced Friday prayers sermon, the more palpably Muslim aspects of the UAE’s cultural constituency became apparent, recalling what yearly threatens to turn into an Islamist takeover of the Cairo International Book Fair back home. Yet the atheistic and erotic titles published by the German-based Dar Al-Jamal, for example, were neither torn up nor burned. Islam is not about terrorism, was what Sheikh Aboobacker, in slighly broken Quranic Arabic, continued to reiterate.

Still, people filed through the labyrinth of booths representing various publishers from the Arab world and Europe, occasionally stopping at one or more of the three larger, prominently marked enclosures occupied by the fair’s own organiser, the Abu Dhabi Organisation for Culture and Heritage (ADACH), and its two initiatives, the Qalam series for Emirati writing and the Kalima megaproject of translation into Arabic.

And judging by the multi-ethnic composition of the audience, the broad spectrum of participating institutions, including the Goethe Institut and the British Council, and the currency of topics like the secrets behind the success of best sellers, the impact of literary awards on Arab culture or the state of comics and the graphic novel in the Arab world, it seemed the event was effectively introducing Western publishing norms into the as yet isolated Arab industry. How long will it take for that industry to be fully integrated?

Instead of enthusiasm from Abu Dhabi’s tiny community of Arabic book lovers, anyway, the fair now clearly bases its credentials on KITAB (Arabic for “book”), the joint venture of ADACH and the venerable Frankfurter Buchmesse, forged in 2007 to bring the event up to speed. For three years now ADIBF, founded in 1987 as a conventionally “Arab” fair, has been mutating into a global industry-standard publishing forum. So, at least, is its perception among a growing number of Gulf-culture champions who respect its aspirations. Two main concerns inform Arab cultural interest in the Gulf and the fair suggests answers to both of them.

First, it seems unfair that an oil-rich Emirate with hardly a single celebrated writer to its name should be positing itself as a literary centre of gravity, until you realise that what Western-style benefits Abu Dhabi manages to garner wearing the cultural-capital hat – literary prizes, publishing ventures, translation initiatives, copyright-protection measures – it will garner for beneficiaries across the Arab world.

Secondly, the fact that the UAE has – contentiously, for some – pioneered cultural projects managed by or modelled on Western institutions (the Saadiyat Island Louvre and Guggenheim initiatives, the Sorbonne and New York University campuses, etc.) has endangered cultural identity only within the borders of the UAE, where Arabs coexist with comparably sized non-Arabic speaking Asian and Western communities. In traditional cultural capitals like Cairo, the overwhelming incidence of Arabic language and literature, not to mention Arab mores and morals, makes culture more or less immune to what atrophy or confusion the adoption of a harshly capitalist, foreign (and once colonial) system might subject it to. But that remains a subject for much more involved debate.

With the Frankfurt Book Fair managing and developing it, at least, ADBIF does focus on the process of publishing, not (like the much older and by now proverbially disorganised Cairo International Book Fair, the most populous book-based event on the Arab map) on selling as much as possible regardless of substance or procedure.

At ADBIF there is no censorship, no fear on the part of security forces of an Islamist takeover of the fair grounds, no working-class-family-outing atmosphere, no shoddy infrastructure, no sudden and inexplicable absence of previously announced big names or enforced lack of access to them, no stiff formalities, and no dire shortage of information or facilities.

Property rights across languages and borders and the editor’s role in the writer’s career are just two of the areas where ADACH hopes to make a radical even if wholly imported contribution to the industry. On the basis of that contribution it is attempting to turn Abu Dhabi into “the region’s publishing hub”, as the official press package already puts it (emphasis mine), the region being all of the (Arab) Middle East and North Africa.

And notwithstanding the difficulties inherent in this business, ADACH just may be succeeding. Certainly ADBIF now looks and feels far more like Frankfurt than Cairo. In a relatively small-scale, comparatively relaxed event, just as much emphasis is placed on the profession of publishing and cross-national networking as on book-related amusements and book-buying opportunities for the public.

***

Established in 2007 in memory of the founder of the UAE, the Sheikh Zayed Book Awards have since 2008 been overshadowed by the the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF, better if less accurately known as the Arabic Booker), a joint venture of the Abu Dhabi-based Emirates Foundation and the prestigious Booker Foundation (judging by this writer’s taste in recent years, Booker and Man Booker short lists have in fact seldom lived up to the name). Yet occurring within 24 hours of each other at the Emirates Palace and Beach Rotana Hotels, respectively, the awards ceremonies demonstrated just how much more interest the Booker commands at every conceivable level.

The Sheikh Zayed Book Awards this year went to the Lebanese Albert Habib Mutlaq for his translation of The Animal Encyclopedia, the Algerian Hafnaoui Baali for Comparative Cultural Criticism: An Introduction, a contribution to the field of literature, the Emirati Qais Sedki for the children’s book Gold Ring, the Egyptian Ammar Ali Hasan for The Political Establishment of Sufism in Egypt – deemed the Best Contribution to the Development of Nations – and the young Moroccan critic Mohammad Al Mallakh for Time in Arabic Language: Its Linguistic Structure and Significance, as well as His Highness Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Mohamed Al-Qasimi as Personality of the Year.

Far more engaging was the awards ceremony and the press conference of the Arabic Booker, which had generated the greatest controversy in its short history this year. Predictably for the vast majority of commentators, the Saudi novelist Abdu Khal’s She Throws Sparks won the grand prix, whether because it was the least controversial novel on the short list, or the work of the short list’s best respected author, or (according to some views) because books that could have competed with it – notably Alawiyya Sobh’s Its Name Is Love – had not made it that far or had been excluded from the start.

Many had contended that the exclusion of important contributions from the long and (more controversially) the short list was intended to facilitate the emergence as the final winner of a book from the Gulf; and subsequent statements by the head of the jury, the Kuwaiti novelist Talib Al-Rifa’i, to the effect that it was time that novels from the Gulf should be introduced to the Western world seemed to give credence to this theory.

Of course, should this be the case, it would be contrary to the regulations of the prize, and Al-Rifa’i in his eagerness to defend the jury, whose names, also contrary to regulations, were published in Cairo two weeks before the short list, ironically worked against it. All manner of accusations and conspiracy theories had been levelled at the jury and the board of trustees, but the head of the Booker Foundation, Jonathan Taylor, seemed confident of the administration of the prize. There was a leak,پh he responded to the question of how the names of jury members could have been known so early. پgI am sorry there was a leak.پh

More to the point, when asked why the judges of the Arabic Booker (unlike those of the Booker and the Man Booker) are not made known to the public in advance, Taylor said, “We were told that this would make it easier for the jury to do its work.” Once again inadvertently, Taylor seemed to give credence to the notion that the corruption of the Arab literary scene may have seeped into a Booker Foundation-managed institution after all.

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The “Arabic Booker” Short List

The London-based Palestinian writer Rabie Al-Madhoun’s Ass Sayyidah min Tal Abeeb (The Lady from Tel Aviv) has been called a work of “post-Oslo resistance literature”. It tells the triple story of Al-Madhoun himself, his writer-protagonist Walid Dahman, and the hero of Dahman’s own fictional novel-in-progress. On a plane from London back to Gaza to see his mother for the first time in decades, Dahman meets an attractive Israeli actress who is subsequently killed in cold blood as a result of a previous love affair with the son of an Arab leader.

The young Lebanese writer Rabee Jabir’s America is a fictional account of early 20th-century Lebanese immigration to the United States, told from the viewpoint of a country woman who follows her husband to New York.

The older Egyptian novelist Mohammad Al-Mansi Qindeel’s Yawm Gha’im fil Bar al Gharbi (A Cloudy Day on the West Side) tells the story of a Muslim woman in late 19th-century Upper Egypt who abandons her young daughter, Aisha, to protect her from the brutality of a merciless stepfather, baptising her as a Christian. This conversion, it later turns out, leads Aisha – who grows up to become a translator – to fall in love with a fictional version of the famous British archaeologist Howard Carter.

The Palestinian-Jordanian writer Jamal Naji’s ’Indama Tashkish adh Dhi’aab (When Wolves Grow Old) has a wide cast of characters and a plot drawn from detective genre fiction. It depicts the social malaise of contemporary Amman, exposing sexual and political repression, the hunger for power among intellectuals and religious leaders, and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

The young Egyptian Mansoura Ez Eldin’s Wara’ al Firdawss (Beyond Paradise) chronicles an obscure episode in the history of the Nile Delta, when surging demand for red brick made from the mud in the Delta created a sudden explosion of wealth among some enterprising local landholders, but in so doing depicts the intensely personal journey of a young female literary magazine editor from her small town to Cairo.

Abdu Khal’s own Tarmi bi Sharar (Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles), set in a destitute Jeddah neighbourhood and in the palace that has recently been built next door to it, shows the brutality  of the owner of that palace, a well-connected, wealthy and powerful if sadistic tycoon who seizes and tortures his enemies. He employs the narrator – a child of the neighbourhood notorious as a homosexual and a bully – to sexually abuse his victims, who are videotaped as they suffer.

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A literary prize fight: politics and the International Prize for Arabic Fiction

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Youssef Zeidan, the winner of the 2009 International Prize for Arabic Fiction for his novel Azazeel (Beelzebub), accepts the grand prize – and a $60,000 award – at a ceremony in Abu Dhabi last March. Andrew Henderson/The National

A fine shortlist of nominees for the third ‘Arabic Booker’ has so far been overshadowed by manufactured controversy, Youssef Rakha writes.

For the third time in as many years, the discussion surrounding the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) has descended into bickering over literary politics. In the Arabic press, where the prize has received considerable attention and attracted equal amounts of controversy, the focus has rarely been on the virtues or demerits of the nominated titles – instead, in the three years since the award was introduced, debate about the politics of the prize has overshadowed discussion of the nominated books.

It seems self-evident that the entirety of any literature cannot be reflected in a single prize, however representative it aims to be – and IPAF does not aim to be representative. Yet since its launch in 2007, writers and publishers have tended to see the “Arabic Booker” as the alpha and omega of literary achievement. Disappointment and distress can hardly be unexpected.

When this year’s longlist of 16 books was released in November, the controversy began with geography: Egyptian authors won the prize in each of its first two years, and when only two Egyptian books turned up on the longlist, a spate of allegations were launched – mostly by disgruntled Egyptians – claiming that the jury had neglected Egyptian fiction to appease the rest of the Arab world.

Complainants like the Egyptian novelist Ibrahim abdul Meguid, who resented the exclusion of his novel Fi kull Usbou’ Yom Jum’ah (Each Week There is a Friday), declared that there was corruption within the IPAF and insisted “a conspiracy against Egypt” was afoot.

Soon thereafter, the conspiratorial consensus shifted to one of the longlisted books, Issmuhu al Gharam (Its Name is Love), by the Lebanese novelist Ulwiyya Subh. Her book, which had been popular and well-reviewed, was regarded by many as the likely winner of the eventual award – some of whom may have concluded that, after two male Egyptian winners, the jury might be inclined to shift its favour to a Lebanese woman.

This speculation took a more sinister turn, however, when interested parties alleged that the book was not merely likely but certain to win. The Lebanese poetry journal Al Ghawoun claimed to have “uncovered a clandestine deal” to fix the results, slinging accusations at Subh herself; at Joumana Haddad, a Lebanese writer and the administrator of the prize; at the Kuwaiti novelist Talib al Rifaie, who sits at the head of this year’s jury; and at the senior Egyptian critic Gaber Asfour, an avowed admirer of Subh.

These conspiracy theories were not dented by the fact that Subh’s book did not make the shortlist of six titles announced in December – instead the critics shifted course, insisting that the uproar over the initial accusations had led the jury, “cowing in to media intimidation”, to deliberately leave Subh off the list.

More controversy ensued with the resignation from the jury of the Egyptian critic Sherine Abu El Naga, who told this newspaper at the time that “the voting method was my main reason for resigning,” protesting that the shortlist decision was made without “dialogue or discussion”. As the gang imagined by Al Ghawoun started bickering among itself – Subh publicly insulting al Rifaie, for example – it became clear how random all the accusations had been.

The prize committee, alas, may have invited some of this speculation: though the members of the jury are supposed to remain secret until the shortlist of finalists is announced, this year the details were leaked and published in a Cairo newspaper two weeks prior to the announcement, more than enough time for speculation about hidden motives and social connections to run wild.

Each member of the jury, it turned out, was a friend or acquaintance of Subh, giving fuel to the conspiracists – and yet such circumstances are partially inevitable: Arab literary circles are small and perilously cliquish.

The public consternation – at least in those same tightly-wound literary circles – over the administration of the prize has served to obscure the grander intentions of the award, the valorisation and promotion of Arabic-language fiction. Instead, the literary community has been polarised into pro- and anti-Booker factions, ensuring that future rounds will continue to be clouded by suspicion, particularly over the nomination of younger writers whose reputations have not yet been established.

A more sensible way of evaluating the prize might be to look at the previous laureates, and to ask what each one signifies as a work of Arabic fiction – and as the book chosen by the prize committee to be sent forth into English translation, where it will represent the impossibly diverse range of literature in Arabic for western readers.

Baha Taher’s Sunset Oasis, which took the first prize in 2008, depicted Egyptian-British relations during colonial times; its translation was funded by a grant from the British philanthropist (and Granta owner) Sigrid Rausing, and published by Sceptre in 2009. Last year’s winner, Azazeel (Beelzebub), by the Egyptian novelist Youssef Zeidan, which tackled religious intolerance in the pre-Islamic Middle East, will be published in English this spring by Atlantic Books.

If there is a common thread that connects the first two winners – each of which, it should be added, was chosen by a separate jury – it is that both stand as affirmations of a pluralistic and liberal value system, one that generally looks positively at the encounters between East and West: in Sunset Oasis, the equality of the races and the right to (national and personal) freedom despite the horrors of colonialism; in Azazeel, the importance of tolerance and understanding in the face of dogma and religious extremism.

Among this year’s shortlisted titles, the London-based Palestinian writer Rabie al Madhoun’s Ass Sayyidah min Tal Abeeb (The Lady from Tel Aviv) hews closest to this East-West tune, but with a more immediate pitch than the historical fictions of Taher and Zeidan.

The novel, which has been called a work of “post-Oslo resistance literature”, tells the triple story of al Madhoun himself, his writer-protagonist Walid Dahman, and the hero of Dahman’s own fictional novel-in-progress. On a plane from London back to Gaza to see his mother for the first time in decades, Dahman meets an attractive Israeli actress. Later, back in London, she is killed in cold blood as a result of her previous amorous involvement with the son of an Arab leader.

The novel has been praised as much for its entertaining narrative as for being among the first Arabic books that deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict undogmatically, showing psychological depth on both sides while accurately portraying the Palestinian tragedy. By prioritising the human over the political, opposing the racism inherent in “nationalist” discourse and siding with human rights, it goes even further than the previous two winners in affirming liberal values.

In the young Lebanese writer Rabee Jabir’s novel America and the older Egyptian novelist Mohammad al Mansi Qindeel’s Yawm Gha’im fil Bar al Gharbi (A Cloudy Day on the West Side), themes of confessional and ethnic intermingling come to the fore in the context of long, multifaceted narratives with heavy historical components. In both cases the encounter between East and West again figures prominently. America is a fictional account of early 20th-century Lebanese immigration to the United States, told from the viewpoint of a country woman who follows her husband to New York.

Yawn Gha’im fil Bar al Gharbi opens with the story of a Muslim woman in late 19th-century Upper Egypt who abandons her young daughter, Aisha, to protect her from the brutality of a merciless stepfather – but baptises her as a Christian before doing so. This coincidence of conversion, it later turns out, leads Aisha – who grows up to become a translator – to fall in love with a fictional version of the famous British archaeologist Howard Carter, transcending the boundaries of religious, national and ethnic identity alike.

Once again, the writer speaks for the rights of the individual woman and opens up humane spaces within an otherwise unequal colonial set-up, while showing the flimsy nature of religious identity for what it is.

The remaining three novels on this year’s shortlist give less attention to the crossing of borders and the intermingling of cultures; each zeroes in on the particularities of national or local cultures, delving into local specifics – in one case, with savage satire – to reveal the tensions within changing societies.

’Indama Tashkish adh Dhi’aab (When Wolves Grow Old), by the Palestinian-Jordanian writer Jamal Naji, employs a wide cast of characters, and a plot drawn from the world of detective genre fiction, to depict the social malaise of contemporary Amman – a panorama of the city that sets out to expose sexual and political repression, the hunger for power among intellectuals and religious leaders, and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

The young Egyptian Mansoura Ez Eldin’s Wara’ al Firdawss (Beyond Paradise) steers clear of the explicitly political to chronicle an obscure episode in the history of the Nile Delta – a period, which concluded in the late 1980s, when surging demand for red brick made from the mud in the Delta created a sudden explosion of wealth among some enterprising local landholders. As in Naji’s book, there are many characters and a complex, if hardly suspenseful, storyline, which follows the intensely personal journey of a young female literary magazine editor from a small town in the Nile Delta to Cairo.

Though the so-called “Arabic Booker” has not, for obvious reasons, attracted the same attention from gamblers as its British namesake, the smart money this year may be on the Saudi novelist Abdu Khal’s grotesque satire of power, Tarmi bi Sharar (Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles). Khal is the most established and celebrated writer on the shortlist, and one might be forgiven for expecting the jury to embrace the least contentious choice after so much public acrimony.

But Khal’s book is not without its own potential for controversy, and it has little to offer in the way of cross-cultural pieties or the tolerance afforded by such encounters. The novel is set in a destitute Jeddah neighbourhood and in the palace that has recently been built next door. The owner of the palace is a well-connected, wealthy and powerful man, about whose origins little is known. The owner, a ruthless and sadistic tycoon, seizes and tortures those who have crossed him; he enlists the narrator – a child of the neighbourhood notorious as a homosexual and a bully – to sexually abuse his victims, who are videotaped as they suffer.

But the narrator, in Khal’s account, is not just an unthinking instrument in the hands of power: he is a participant in the violence, an agent of political oppression, but also a victim of economic dispossession. Khal’s depiction of the narrator’s extended family and neighbours – particularly his bravely disapproving aunt, from whose eyes the sparks of the title emanate – reflects an entire society caught up in the horror of inequality and the absurdity of power.

Of course, this year’s shortlist does not reflect the entirety of contemporary Arabic literature, but there can be plenty of merit in six books. While the bickering will inevitably continue well beyond the announcement of the winning title on March 2, it is important to note that not one of these books is in any sense unworthy of the award. Reasonable critics can disagree whether they are the absolute best or most innovative on offer. I for one, was surprised to see that the Iraqi novelist Ali Badr, a prolific chronicler of Baghdad who combines engaging plots with a sharp and versatile intellect, failed for the third time to make it from the longlist to the shortlist, this time for Mulouk ar Rimal (Sand Kings).

It was similarly disappointing to see the exclusion of the Egyptian novelist Ibrahim Farghali’s Abnaa al Gabalawai (Children of Gabalawi), which represents the vanguard of a home-grown Egyptian magical realism that is very different from its Latin American counterpart. But it seems indisputable that these six books are in fact reasonably representative of contemporary Arabic literature. And regardless of the extent to which the “Arabic Booker” remains dogged by ungrounded accusations of favouritism, this year’s shortlist demonstrates that, while writers and publishers may not be entirely immune to such faults, the literature they produce remains a strong statement against them.

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حديث محمد فرج في السفير

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Ibn Arabi (Arabic: ابن عربي) (July 28, 1165-No...
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محمد فرج: ما يكتبه ليس أدب رحلات ولكنه سياحة روحية في الأماكن

يوسف رخا: ما يسمّونه الانفجار الروائي أنتج كتابات لا تمتّ للجنس الروائي

استطاع يوسف رخا أن يصنع شكلاً جديداً ومغايراً لأدب الرحلات عبر ثلاثة كتب، صدر أحدثها مؤخراً تحت عنوان «شمال القاهرة، غرب الفلبين.. أسفار في العالم العربي» عن دار رياض الريس للكتب والنشر. بدأ مشروع يوسف رخا مع بيروت عندما قام بزيارتها في الذكرى الثلاثين للحرب الأهلية وكتب كتابه الاول «بيروت شي محل» 2006، بعد بيروت كانت رحلته إلى تونس ثم كتابه «بورقيبة على مضض..عشرة أيام في تونس» 2008 ثم الكتاب الأخير الذي شمل رحلات عدة الى المغرب وتونس ولبنان والامارات وايضاً القاهرة. عبر لغة متوترة ذات جمل قصيرة تلغرافية، تقدّم قراءة للمكان ولتاريخه القديم وحالته الآنية وايضاً ترصد حالة الرواي الذي هو مصري او عربي يلتقي بعرب آخرين لتظهر من خلال هذا اللقاء أسئلة كثيرة تشغل يوسف عبر كتبه الثلاثة أسئلة متعلقة بالهوية والقومية والشتات العربي والتاريخ وكيفية رؤيتنا الحالية له وايضاً كيفية تعاملنا اليومي معه.
يوسف لجأ الى هذا الشكل الكتابي مللاً من حصر أدبية الكتابة في الرواية والقصة والشعر واعتبار أي كتابة غير روائية هي كتابة غير أدبية، وبالتالي أقل شأناً، ولكنه يعكف الآن على كتابة رواية. وقرر أن «شمال القاهرة، غرب الفلبين» هو آخر ما سيكتبه بهذا الشكل فقد استنفده ولن يأتي فيه بجديد.
بداية.. ماذا تعني لك كتابة المكان؟
لا أحب استعمال تعبير «كتابة مكان» فهو تعبير نقدي وليس تصنيفاً أدبياً، بالنسبة لي ليس الامر في الكتابة عن المكان قدر. هو تجاوز على قدسية «النص الادبي». فما أكتبه ليس قصة ولا شعراً وليس رواية. نص لا يحمل إدعاء روائياً أو قصصياً ولكن في الوقت ذاته أدباً.
وربما تكون تجربتي مختلفة بعض الشيء. ففي البداية كنت اكتب قصصاً ونُشرت في كتاب «أزهار الشمس» 1999 ولكن لم أكن أعرف ساعتها أني لا بد ان أكون خادماً لكتابي وأحمله وأطوف به على الصحف وعلى النقاد والكتاب كي أعرفهم بنفسي، كنت أتصوّر ان النشر كفيل بأن يجعل المهتمين يقرأون ويتفاعلون. وقد تزامن هذا مع الوقت الذي بدأت فيه العمل في الصحافة وتحديداً في «الاهرام ويكلي» في وقت ضمت الجريدة عدداً من الشخصيات خلقت مناخاً مغايراً للعمل وفتحت فيه مساحات جديدة للكتابة وإمكانيات للظهور.
ولم أكن أتعامل مع الصحافة كمجرد «أكل عيش» أو كعمل تافه. كنت أمارسها بشيء من الحب والاهتمام ولم أكن أضع ذلك الفارق بين «الأدبي» المهم و«الصحفي» الأقل أهمية. فانشغلت بذلك لفترة طويلة تقريباً ست سنوات. ولما كنت أيضاً أعمل في الصحافة الثقافية، وبالتالى كنت متابعاً للحياة الثقافية وكنت أشعر بالملل من فكرة الانفجار الروائي التي بدأت في تلك الفترة، كنت أشعر ان هذا الحديث كله كان يجب أن يدور حول حركة التسعينيات الشعرية التي حققت منجزاً بالفعل.
ثم جاء «بيروت شي محل»؟
خلال الفترة التي أتحدث عنها بدأت مجلة «أمكنة» في الصدور. التي تقوم بالأساس على الاعتماد على كتابة خارجة عن التصنيف الادبي، وعندما ذهبت إلى بيروت في الذكرى الثلاثين للحرب الاهلية في 2005 كان من المفترض أني سأكتب مقالاً صغيراً لأمكنة»، ولكن وجدت المقال ينمو معي اذ فتح معي طرقاً جديدة تحمل أسئلة كثيرة لها علاقة بالكتابة من ناحية وبفكرة «الهوية» من ناحية أخرى. فكان «بيروت.. شي محل» ثم «بورقيبة على مضض» 2008 والكتاب الصادر مؤخراً «شمال القاهرة غرب الفلبين»، والذي ضم مجموعة رحلات حدثت خلال فترة الكتابين السابقين.
كتابتك من الصعب تصنيفها كأدب رحلات تقليدي أو سيرة ذاتية او رواية كيف تراها أنت وكيف ترى كيفية استقبال القارئ لها؟؟
في البداية كنت أصنف ما أكتبه أنه أدب رحلات، وبعد كتاب تونس وجدت أيضاً أنه خارج تصنيف أدب الرحلات بشكل ما. بالنسبة للقارئ هناك شكل ما من الخدعة فأنا أقدم هذا على أنه أدب رحلات وللقارئ حر في كيفية التعامل معه.
ابراهيم فرغلي عندما تناول كتابي الأخير ذكر ان ما أكتبه ليس أدب رحلات فهو لا يضيف الى معلومات القارئ شيئاً جديداً عن المكان، ولكنه نوع من السياحة الروحية في الاماكن!! وهو تقريباً عكس ما أقصد تماماً. لقد كنت سعيداً بكلمة الغلاف الخلفي لـ «شرق القاهرة غرب الفلبين»، لأنه يذكر ببساطة انه كتاب عن رحلات الى عدة مدن عربية.
الطرح الذي تقدّمه كتابتي بالأساس هو طرح يبتعد عن فكرة انك تكتب قصة قصيرة او رواية ولا تودّ حتى الاقتراب من هذا العالم. انت تكتب كتابة أدبية بعيدة عن المفاهيم الميتافيزيقية لسياحة الروح من ناحية وأيضاً عن الانواع الادبية المعروفة. ما اريد ان اقوله ان هذه الكتابة تتجاوز وترفض فكرة ان الادب او النص الادبي اعلى من النص الصحفي على سبيل المثال او الرسالة التي يمكن ان يتبادلها الاصدقاء. فالأدب ليس تعالياً او مجرد شكل من أشكال التصنيف تضفي قداسة على شكل وتلغيها عن أشكال أخرى.
لقد دفعت نقوداً من اجل ان انشر قصصي ولكن لم يهتم بها أحد. بينما في الصحافة تم الاحتفاء بي وتقدير ما أكتبه بشكل لم يصنعه النشر التقليدي. وانا لا أعرف كيف ستكون شكل الحياة بعد خمسين سنة هل ستبقى الناس تقرأ كتباً مثلاً أم ستتوقف هذه العادة. لا أحبّ فكرة الخلود الادبي.
فأنا أريد ان يتم الاحتفاء بعملي وانا على قيد الحياة وان اشعر ان هناك من يهتم بعملي بالدرجة التي ترضيني.
وبالنسبة لي اظن هناك ثلاثة مستويات عندما أتعامل مع ما أكتب المستوى السياحي او المفهوم الغربي لأدب الرحلات كمشاهدات وهناك مستوى آخر يرتبط بفكرة الهوية الذي يطرح نفسه بقوة طوال الوقت.. سؤال أن تكون عربياً؟؟ فهل نحن عرب، لأننا نتكلم في هذا الفضاء الواسع المسمّى اللغة العربية؟
وايضاً هناك المستوى التاريخي وهو المستوى الاهم والتاريخ هنا بمعنى ما يروى عن المكان، وهو ما يفرض الكتابة عن المكان، فكلمة «يُروى عن» يأتي بعدها مكان أو شخص أو سرد عنك؟
أعتقد ان دخول السيرة الذاتية ليست شيئاً مقصوداً بقدر ما هو جزء من طريقتي في الكتابة، وليس محركاً لي للكتابة. ولم أسع حتى الآن الى التخلص منها.
الفكرة بالأساس هي بمنهج الصحافة نفسها. يوجد حدث ثقافي وأنا كصحافي ذاهب لتغطيته فتسافر وتشاهد وتتأثر وتتحدث مع أكبر عدد ممكن من الناس وتجمع مشاهداتك وأحاديثك وتكتب عن كل هذا. وحقق ذلك بالنسبة لي توازناً بعيداً عن المناخ الأدبي الذي كنت أراه قاتماً وسخيفاً. وكانت «أمكنة» بالنسبة لي تفتح طريقاً مبشراً للخروج من هذا السخف والقتامة.
بيروت ـ تونس
كيــف كانــت تجربــة الكتابــة عــن تونــس بعد «بيروت شي محل»؟
كتاب بيروت بالطبع كان أكثر انطلاقاً أو فطرية. «بورقيبة على مضض» كان يحمل خبرة عملية أكثر بهذا الشكل الكتابي. فعلى حد تعبير كل من ايمان مرسال وعلاء خالد أن كتاب تونس فيه تعمّد في الكتابة. وانا أظن ان قراءة الكتابين معا مهمة فهناك الكثير من خطوط التشابه والارتباط كما هو حاصل ايضاً من وجهة نظري بين بيروت وتونس على مستوى انتقال الفلسطينيين من بيروت الى تونس. وانتقال الفينيقيين من بيروت الى تونس. وانتقالي شخصياً بين المدينتين.
وقد استغرقت عملية كتابة «بورقيبة على مضض» وقتاً أطول حيث استعملت أساليب متعددة واستخدمت وسائل أكثر.
ومن ناحية أخرى لم تكن مادة تونس مثيرة مثل مادة و«كتابة بيروت شي محل» بيروت بالفعل حركت أشياء كثيرة بداخلي. تونس أيضاً وضعتني أمام أسئلة كثيرة متعلقة بالعروبة وباللغة وعلى مستوى التدين أيضاً فهناك في تونس تدين أكثر من مصر، ولكن الأقل هو مظاهر هذا التدين التي تغلب في مصر.
على الرغم من التشابه بين تاريخي مصر وتونس. فالتاريخ التونسي هو تاريخ مصغر لمصر باستثناء أن ناصر مات وبورقيبة تمّ عزله وهذا كان أمراً مثيراً. بالنسبة لي هذه المقارنة بين مشاريع ناصر وبورقيبة وأيها لا زال يعمل وأيها توقف عن العمل وعن إنتاج النتائج. لكن لبنان حالة أكثر عنفاً وتعقيداً. وكان لدي في رحلة بيروت هدف واضح وهو أن أفهم «الحرب الأهلية» بالتأكيد لم أفهمها ولكن هذا الهدف كان موجوداً وهو ما سهّل الكتابة، رحلة تونس جعلتني أكثر حيرة.
لكن سفرك لبيروت لم يكن هو الأول، فدراستك الجامعية كانت في إنكلترا… لماذا لم تكتب عن هذه الفترة؟
اعتقد ان الكتابة عن المكان مرتبطة بقرب المساحة الزمنية لرؤية المكان، لان الامر يتحول الى ذاكرة للمكان. وهنا تتحول الى كتابة ذكرياتك عن المكان… الأمر الذي يجعل الكتابة عن الذاكرة وليس عن المكان. ولكني لم أحاول ان أكتب من قبل عن فترة إقامتي بانكلترا وهو ما يلفت انتباهي هذه الأيام، ربما لأني لست مشغولا منذ البداية بالغرب. لكن العدد المقبل من «أمكنة» سيكون حول الجامعة وسأشترك به بمقال عن هذه الفترة وهذا سيكون أول كتابة عن هذه الفترة.
ما اقصده بالمساحة الزمنية هو الابتعاد الزمني عن زمن الرحلة فرحلتي إلى انكلترا كانت من 1995 الى 1998 مر تقريباً عشر سنين. وهو الامر الذي سيجعل كتابتي عنها مختلفة بالتأكيد عن كتابة رحلتي بيروت وتونس فالإقامة الطويلة في المكان تصنع شيئاً مختلفاً وتحتاج إلى صياغة مختلفة. فالنص الوحيد عندي الذي يحمل إقامة طويلة بالمكان هو نص الإمارات – في الكتاب الأخير وكتبته بعد إقامة ثلاثة أشهر – فاذا كتب نص بيروت بعد سنتين من الإقامة مثلاً فلن يحمل هذا الدرجة من الاحتفاء بالمكان وهذا البريق الذي يحمله المكان الجديد، بالتأكيد سيخرج كتابة أخرى، ولكنها مختلفة تماماً.
تحدثت عن «الهوية» فما الذي تقصده؟
منذ ان تولد وانت تحمل هاجس المكان الآخر، فأنت تعرف انك في الجزء الأقل من العالم فهناك بلاد أجمل وأحسن من مصر. وأعتقد أن الهدف الاهم الذي أسعى اليه هو ان تشعر بأنك ند لأي «آخر»، فلن تكون انساناً وانت تحمل احساساً بالدونية. وعقب احداث مباراة «أم درمان» بين مصر والجزائر برز هذا الإحساس بالدونية إلى السطح على سبيل المثال.
فموضوع الهوية ضاغط وحاضر عندي واعتقد انه سيكون موجوداً في أي كتابة عندي. ربما لو كنت انكليزياً او اميركياً لم اكن سأنشغل بمسألة الهوية هذه اظن ان هناك ظرفاً تاريخياً يجعل موضوع الهوية مطروحاً عليك طوال الوقت فأنت مواجه بانك في مزبلة العالم.
ومن ناحية أخرى خلال كتبي الثلاثة ثمة مصري يقارن نفسه كعربي بعربي آخر. وليس المصري بشكل عام في أي مكان. ويكتشف أننا لسنا متشابهين ولا نتكلم جميعاً اللغة نفسها. فالموضوع في احد مستوياته متعلق بدحض الشوفينية المصرية – الغريبة أحياناً – فثمة فكرة عند المصريين أنهم مفهومون في حين بقية اللهجات غير مفهومة. مع ان الواقعي ان بقية العرب لا يفهمون كل العامية المصرية بالضبط كما لا نفهم نحن المصريين كل العامية التونسية او اللبنانية. أجل ثمة حالة من التعايش مع العامية المصرية الشبيهة «بالتلفزيون»، ولكن في الحقيقة انت غير مفهوم بالشكل الذي تتصوره.
ولكن هذا الهاجس لم يتواجد في فترة الدراسة في انكلترا؟
أنا غير مشغول بالغرب على الإطلاق كموضوع كتابة. وهذا ما جعلتني رحلة بيروت وما تلاها اكتشفه. فتصور الحياة في العالم «الافضل» انكسر عندي مبكراً فلقد سافرت الى اوروبا وأنا في السابعة عشرة. فتفكك عندي هذا الوهم منذ البداية بالإضافة إلى عدم فضولي لمشاهدة اوروبا. بالنسبة لي أفضل الذهاب الى بورما او نامبيا أفضل من فينا بالنسبة لي. هذا السياق يثيرني أكثر وأجد أشياء كثيرة لأقولها مرتبطة بهذا السياق.
وبالتالي البحث الذي أجده أكثر فائدة بالنسبة لي وعلى المستوى الاجتماعي المعاصر هو البحث في معنى كونك عربياً أو مسلماً معاصراً.
الهوية بالايجاب وليس بالسلب ان ترى نفسك مساوياً للآخرين لست أقل ولست أعلى. ليس بالتغني بجمال الآخر او بمهاجمته بدون معنى. ان تتعاطى مع الشروط المعاصرة التي هي بالضرورة ناشئة نتيجة علاقاتك المتعددة المستويات بهذا الآخر. وان تنشغل بأسئلتك الخاصة وليس بمقارنات مع الآخرين.
هل لديك خطط جديدة للكتابة عن مدن أخرى؟
لا اريد التوقف عن المدن العربية، ولكن أشعر أني اكتفيت من الكتابة بهذا الشكل وتحديداً في نص أبو ظبي. لن أقدم فيه جديداً بعد ذلك. ستتحول بعد ذلك الى تكرار وتعمّد بدون أي إضافة لا يعــني ذلك اني سأتوقف عن الكتابة عن المدن، ولكن ليس بهذا الـــشكل ولا أعــرف أيضا بأي شكل.
وأشعر أن نصوص «شمال القاهرة غرب الفلبين» ربما لم تحمل الحالة نفسها التي كتب بها الكتابان السابقان فهي نصوص كتبت لأسباب مختلفة وبشروط مختلفة لكتبي السابقة. والغريب بالنسبة لي أن أكثر ما كتب كان عن الكتاب الأخير، ربما لانه جاء بعد تراكم جذب الانتباه إلى هذا الشكل الكتابي. الآن هناك عملية كتابة جديدة تحدث ولكن على مستوى خيالى في الرواية التي أعكف الآن على كتابتها تحت عنوان «الطغري»، وهي حكاية خيالية غير واقعية او غير عقلانية وتدور أيضاً داخل مدينة هي القاهرة. والفرق بينه وبين كتبي السابقة هو وجود حدوتة لا معقولة تتركب عليها الأحداث.
الانفجار الروائي
كنت تريد الخروج من فكرة التجنيس الأدبي، والآن تكتب رواية. ولكن ألم تفكر بعد «بيروت شي محل» كتابة رواية؟
لا لم أفكر.. وأكثر ما يسبب لي ألفة في كتابة «الطغري»، هو أنها ايضاً خارجة عن الرواية الكلاسيكية، ومرتبطة أكثر بالكتب التجمعية الشهيرة في التراث العربي مثل «المستطرف». بالتأكيد ليس بهذا الحجم ولكنها تحمل بشكل ما هذه الصفة «الموسوعية»، محاولة كم وضع كبير من المعلومات حول شخص في سياق أدبي ما. وأيضاً لها علاقة بطريقة كتابة التاريخ عند الجبرتي وأبن أياس. وهذا يشعرني بشكل ما بعلاقة مع هذا التراث العربي – الذي لم يكن يضم الرواية بالمناسبة – أكثر من علاقتي بالكثير مما يكتب تحت اسم الرواية العربية الجديدة.
تحدثت عن الانفجارالروائي والرواية الجديدة… كيف ترى هذه المقولات؟
أكثر ما يكتب على انه «رواية» قد خلقت بالتالي هذه الحالة من «الانفجار الروائي» الذي يتحدثون عنه منذ سنين لا تمتّ للجنس الروائي بصلة. ما أقصده أن الجنس الروائي في العالم له علاقة بالحكي واللاواقعية.
فالروية بشكل ما هي نتاج البرجوازية الاوروبية في القرن التاسع عشر والتي كانت تكتب في كتب كبيرة الحجم لطبقة معينة عن طبقة أخرى. في ظل عدم وجود وسائل تسلية أخرى مثل التلفزيون. الا استثناءات يكون فيها الكاتب مخبولاً مثل ديستويفسكي على سبيل المثال.
فلكي تخلق علاقة بهذا الجنس الأدبي بالتأكيد ان تحتاج الى هو اكثر واعمق من أن تكتب قصة قصيرة طويلة بعض الشيء ثم تضع على غلافها كلمة رواية. او ان تكتب سيرتك الذاتية او اعترافاتك وتضع عليها رواية أيضاً.
انا مع تسمية كتابة مثل «عزازيل» او «عمارة يعقوبيان» رواية بغض النظر عن رأيك في هذه الكتابة. ولكن كتاب علاء خالد الأخير على سبيل المثال وهو كتاب جميل وأمتعني كثيراً ولكنه ليس رواية.
ولا يوجد أي مجهود حقيقي نقدي أو غير نقدي في تعريف ما هي «الرواية العربية» على الإطلاق، لو لدينا خطاب نقدي مسؤول لوجه اهتمامه لحركة الشعر في التسعينيات.
الانفجار لم يكن روائياً ولكن في كتابات أطلق عليها روايات، والرواية مجرد شكل من اشكال النشر. مع وجود حقيقة عالمية تؤكد ان الرواية تحقق حالة من المتابعة والاكتفاء والتشبع بالنسبة للقارئ، ولذلك مبيعات الرواية في العالم كله أكثر من الشعر او القصة القصيرة.
والنقد الغائب…
جزء من كوني ضد فكرة تسامي النص الأدبي على بقية ايضاً كوني لست مشغولا بالبكاء على النقد فلديّ الكثير من المصائب ولا احب الكتابة الاكاديمية بشكل عام. واعتقد ان النقاد لدينا الذين يملتكون ادوات نقدية تمكنهم من ممارسة هذا الفعل توقفت أذهانهم عند الستينيات.
ولا توجد متابعة تفاعلية حقيقة لما يكتب. فجزء من النقد ومن القراءة الحقيقية ان تتـفاعل مع ما تقرأ، وهذا لا يحدث.
لكن لماذا لا يفرز كل جيل نقاده كما يخرج مبدعينه؟
يمكن تفسير ذلك باسباب أكثر ابرزها ان النظام التعليمي السائد في مصر لا يساعد على خلق هذه العقلية النقدية. في النهاية المبدع قادر على ان يعلم نفسه. اعتقد النقد يحتاج بشكل ما او بآخر الى منهجية معينة بعيداً عن استقرارك على هذه المنهجية ام لا ولكن بالأساس يجب أن توجد هذه الآلية. هذا يعني بشكل آخر نظاماً تعليمياً وهذا ما اعرف انه يجري في جامعات أوروبية واميركية حيث ينتجون نقداً وليس مجرد متابعات.
الى جانب سؤال آخر هو كم الكتابات الموجود حالياً من اجل من ومن يقرأها؟؟ وهو سؤال له مستويات كثيرة ولكن يبقى المستوى الأهم هو مستوى العلاقة مع المجتمع بمفهومه الواسع فأنت في النهاية ومع كل هذا الضجيج أشبه بمن يطبع منشورات سرية

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يوسف رخا: الكتابة طريقة حياة و… مهنة أيضاً

معجون يوسف رخا بالجنون الأدبي،‮ ‬يكتب شعرا،‮ ‬ونثرا،‮ ‬ويرسم أعماله،‮ ‬ويصمم أغلفة كتبه،‮ ‬ويعمل في الصحافة باللغة الإنجليزية،‮ ‬في كتابه الجديد‮ “‬كل أماكننا‮” ‬دعوة شمولية هذه المرة للتجوّل بعيني رخا في المدن التي زارها وأقام فيها،‮ ‬كان قد صرّح عن عزمه بإنهاء الكتابة في هذا المجال،‮ ‬يصحح بأنه لن يترك الكتابة عن المكان،‮ ‬لكنه سيغير طريقته في التناول‮: “‬انتهيت من الكتابة بتقنية تكرار العناوين والصوت الواحد المتحدث بأكثر من نبرة،‮ ‬لا لشيء سوي لأنها انتهت فعلا،‮ ‬و”مش هتجيب‮” ‬أكثر من ذلك‮”.‬

الكتاب الصادر عن دار العين،‮ ‬هو تجميع لديوانين وتنويعات علي نصوص شاردة بحسب وصفه،‮ ‬يكتب رخا في المكان عن علاقة العربي بالعربي‮: “‬ما يعنيني هو العالم العربي،‮ ‬لكن الغرب بشكل عام فهو حاضر رغما عني،‮ ‬أعني حضوره الثقافي المسيطر،‮ ‬لكن ما أطرحه هو فكرة العروبة كهوية ثقافية بكل تعددها،‮ ‬وليست العروبة بمنطق سياسي،‮ ‬أما في روايتي القادمة‮ “‬الطغري‮” ‬اتحدث بالأساس عن الهوية الإسلامية‮”.‬

يشرح رخا أن ما أراد تأكيده من خلال‮ “‬كل أماكننا‮”‬،‮ ‬هو كسر الحاجز بين الشعر والنثر،‮ ‬أو السرد كما يفضل أن يطلق عليه،‮ ‬والمراهنة علي التنويع في الأشكال والأجناس بدون إحداث ترهّل،‮ ‬بل علي العكس بإمكانه أن يكون متماسكا ويحقق التطلعات المرغوبة،‮ ‬بغض النظر عن القواعد الشكلية‮: “‬لا أشعر بمسافة بين النوعين في كتاباتي علي الأقل،‮ ‬لما لا نجرب أن نضع الأشياء التي تبدو متناقضة بجوار بعضها،‮ ‬وننتظر النتيجة،‮ ‬التي قد تكون في صالحنا،‮ ‬النص بإمكانه أن يكون متماسكا‮ “‬،‮ ‬من هنا يؤكد رخا أن التمسك والاتفاق عربيا علي قدم وأصالة الرواية العربية أمر‮ ‬غريب،‮ ‬رغم أن وجودها كشكل أدبي‮ ‬غير متأصل في التاريخ العربي،‮ ‬فالرواية في العالم العربي وفق رخا عمرها أقل من مائة سنة،‮ ‬وعلاقتنا بها مازالت في طور التكوين‮: “‬كثيرون لا يستوعبون أن الرواية كشكل ارتبطت بشرط تاريخي،‮ ‬فقد نشأت الرواية الكلاسيكية في روسيا وفرنسا القرن الـ19بمنطق التسلية،‮ ‬مثلها مثل التليفزيون،‮ ‬كان ينظر للرواية علي أنها متعة رخيصة‮”.‬

يقول رخا إن ما مكّنه من الكتابة عن مدن مثل بيروت وتونس أنها مدن صغيرة بالمقارنة بالقاهرة،‮ ‬بدليل أنه عندما قرر الكتابة عن تاريخ القاهرة جاءت الرواية القادمة ضخمة،‮ ‬وعموما هو يشعر بطمأنينة حسب قوله في ظل‮ ‬غياب مرجعيات كبري بخصوص المكان،‮ ‬مما يعني‮ ‬غياب الفكرة الكبيرة المؤرقة دائما‮: “‬ليس في‮ ‬غيابها مصيبة،‮ ‬أحيانا يحتاج المرء إلي التماس ولو حتي فكرة تافهة أو صغيرة‮”.‬

نرجع للحديث عن المشروع القادم،‮ ‬فيخبرنا صاحب‮ “‬بيروت شي محل‮” ‬بأنها عبارة عن رحلات داخل القاهرة،‮ ‬وفيها تلامس مع الفترة العثمانية،‮ ‬وأنه اكتشف أن عدد الكلمات في أحد فصول تلك الرواية يتجاوز مجموع صفحات آخر كتابين له‮ “‬بورقيبة علي مضض‮” ‬و”شمال القاهرة شرق الفلبين‮”‬،‮ ‬والأهم من ذلك أنه اشتغل فيها علي درجة عالية من التخيل،‮ ‬صحيح أنها رواية عن التاريخ،‮ ‬لكنها‮ – ‬كما يري‮ – ‬ليست بحثا تاريخيا بالمفهوم الذي يتبعه جمال الغيطاني مثلا‮.

‬في هذه الرواية أيضا كعادته لا يتخلي يوسف رخا عن لغته المحيرة،‮ ‬المراوغة‮ ‬والموسوعية،‮ ‬يعترف رخا أنه خائف من ردود الفعل تجاه لغة الكتاب خصوصا في العواصم العربية المتأثرة بالثقافة الفقهية،‮ ‬وبالتالي تنزعج من العامية المصرية،‮ ‬والتي تسرد في الرواية كما يوضّح حكاية خيالية‮ ‬غير واقعية وغير عقلانية بالمرة،‮ ‬وتحيلنا تقنية الأسلوب الذي يستخدمه فيها‮ – ‬أتيح التعرّف علي أجواء الرواية من إيميل كان رخا قد أرسله عبر مقتطف من الرواية ليقرأه الأصدقاء‮ – ‬إلي الكتابات التراثية التاريخية لدي الجبرتي بالتحديد وابن إياس،‮ ‬يقول‮: “‬استوحيت من هذه مثل الكتابات تكنيك تركيب الجمل والتدفق وروح الشفاهية الأسلوبية وليست اللفظية،‮ ‬خاصة أن كتابات الجبرتي مثيرة بالنسبة لي،‮ ‬لا أحاكيها ولا أتناص معها،‮ ‬بل بإمكان القول أنني استحضرها وأعيد إنتاجها‮”‬،‮ ‬إلي جانب ذلك يذكّر رخا بفترة ابن إياس بالتحديد والتي كانت متهمّة بتراجع الأدب فيها،‮ ‬وهو ما لا يراه رخا ويناقضه‮: “‬كانوا يكتبون بأسلوب الصحفيين مع‮ ‬غياب مفهوم الصحافة وقتها‮”.

‬ بعد إدراج اسمه ضمن قائمة أدباء مسابقة بيروت‮ ‬39‮ ‬صرّح رخا بأنه يعيش مرحلة انتقالية في مساره،‮ ‬جعلته يلتفت إلي الأدب أكثر من ذي قبل،‮ ‬أسأله عن السبب،‮ ‬يحكي لي أنه إلي حد ما شعر بالتحقق علي المستوي الصحفي‮ – ‬التحق بهذا المجال منذ‮ ‬1998‮- ‬وقد شغله عن الكتابة الإبداعية لاعتبارات أكل العيش،‮ ‬أما بعد ذلك فيعتقد أنه انفتحت له مجالات للكتابة،‮ ‬لها علاقة بإحساس انتظار الناس لما سوف يصدره،‮ ‬يقول‮: “‬الكتابة طريقة حياة،‮ ‬ثم هي بالأساس مهنة،‮ ‬وبالنسبة لي كان مهما أن تمنحني شغلة الكتابة في الصحافة عائدا ماديا‮”.‬

c.v

مواليد‮ ‬1976

يعمل صحفيا بالأهرام ويكلي

يكتب الشعر

نشر له‮ “‬بيروت شيء محل‮” ‬2006‮- “‬بورقيبة علي مضض‮” ‬2008

‮”‬شمال القاهرة‮ ‬غرب الفلبين‮” ‬2009

وكتابه الأخير‮ “‬كل أماكننا‮” ‬صادر عن دار العين

يعمل حاليا علي رواية بعنوان‮ “‬الطغري‮”‬

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A world of promise

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Bianca Brigitte Bonomi

The Hay Festival, which is now in its 22nd year, is a literary institution that is helping to foster a global interest in Arab writing. Richard Stanton

At the London Book Fair two years ago, Arab literature took centre stage. It was the subject of lectures, debates and interactive sessions with authors and publishers. Despite its prevalence over the course of the week, however, we learnt that Arab literature hadn’t made significant inroads into the West. Factors ranging from censorship to an under-developed publishing infrastructure and a paucity of translators were contributing to its status as a largely untapped literary market.
Two years on, and progress is being made. There is an increasing literary awareness within the region and a growing international interest. A number of prestigious awards are being offered to stimulate reading and translation in the Arab world. We have an “Arab Booker” prize, publishing houses including Penguin and Bloomsbury are expanding into the Gulf and authors such as Alaa el Aswany are becoming household names: all paying testament to the serious drive to place Arabic texts alongside writing from more heavily marketed parts of the world on western bookshelves.
Beirut39, a Hay Festival project that aims to select and celebrate 39 of the most interesting Arab writers under the age of 40 as part of the Beirut World Capital festivities 2009/10, is a forerunner in promoting this literature on a global stage.

The Hay Festival’s interest in Arab literature is linked in no small part to the obvious potential of this emerging market. “The statistics speak for themselves,” says Bachar Chebaro, the owner of Arab Scientific Publishers and the secretary general of the Arab Publishers Association. “Twenty-four Arab countries, a population of 340 million and 422 million Arabic speakers living outside of the region.” In the current economic climate, western publishers are increasingly tempted by this huge potential readership and the world’s largest festival of books has taken note.

Hay, now in its 22nd year, is a literary institution. In May, more than 100,000 people braved the rain to head to the sleepy book town on the Welsh border. The festival has hosted ex-presidents, rock stars and Booker prize winners and has extended its global reach in recent years to include offshoots in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, Segovia and Alhambra in Spain and Nairobi, Kenya. Beirut39 follows Bogotá39, which launched in the Colombian city in 2007 and identified many of the most promising rising Latin American talents, including Daniel Alarcón, Junot Díaz, Wendy Guerra, Andrés Newman and Juan Gabriel Vásquez.

In the past, Arabic texts translated have generally been those produced by established writers. Important new literary awards have increased the profile of Arabic literature in the Arab world and worldwide, but the writers who have benefited have for the most part already enjoyed long careers. In recognition of the fact that the difficulties facing emerging Arab writers are particularly acute, Beirut39 set out to identify writers at the start of their careers struggling to find a wider audience. First or second-generation Arab authors born after 1970 with at least one published work of fiction or poetry were eligible for inclusion and nominations were solicited from publishers and literary critics across the Arab world and internationally. Members of the public were invited to nominate writers online and – controversially – authors could nominate themselves.

Around 500 young authors from across the Arab world as well as the Arab diaspora in Europe and America submitted their works. The vast majority of these texts were written in Arabic.

“England has always struggled to get interested in any literature not written in English,” says Cristina Fuentes La Roche, the Hay Festival project director. “They translate less literature than other countries in Europe. At the moment there are some terrific Arab authors succeeding in the western world, but they all write in English or in French. This project will give Arabic writers a real boost,” she says.

At the Frankfurt Book Fair last month, the entrants were whittled down to the final 39. Members of the committee, headed by the Egyptian literary critic Gaber Asfour, and including the Lebanese novelist Alawiya Sobh, the Omani poet Saif Al Rahbi and the Lebanese poet and critic Abdo Wazen, focused on the degree of potential shown by the authors. The winners include the Saudi-born Abdullah Thabit, the Moroccans Abdelaziz Errachidi, Yassin Adnan, Abdelkader Benali and Abderrahim Elkhassar, Lebanon’s Hala Kawtharani, the Egyptoian Youssef Rakha, the Palestinian Adania Shibli and the Iraqi Ahmad Saadawi. Faiza Guene, a young French-Algerian writer whose first novel was published at the age of 19, is on the list, as is the award-winning short-story writer, novelist and translator Randa Jarrar. Her first novel, A Map of Home, was released to critical acclaim in six languages, and won the Hopwood Award, the Gosling Prize and the Arab American Book Award. The Iraqi poet and playwright Bassim Al Ansar was also shortlisted. In 1999, Ansar started a contemporary literature magazine in Denmark, his current home, and has had several books of poetry published.

The 39 authors will travel to Beirut in April for four days of literary talks, debates and recitals. Libraries, bookshops, cafes and universities will welcome visitors to discuss the issues at the heart of Arab contemporary fiction. The festival hopes to attract a diverse audience, reflecting the power of writing to stimulate social cohesion and cultural understanding.

To mark the occasion, Bloomsbury will publish Beirut39, an anthology of fiction and poetry by the selected authors with an introduction by the Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf. The book will be published in English and Arabic in the UK, the US and the Arab world.

“This is one of the most exciting projects Bloomsbury has undertaken in recent years and is entirely in keeping with its commitment to the best writing from all over the world,” says Bill Swainson, the senior commissioning editor at Bloomsbury London. “We are hugely appreciative of the judges’ careful work in considering submissions and delighted with the scope, energy and quality of their final selection.”

The backing of the publishing house is a boost to the project and will facilitate the sharing of literature around the globe. For the author and former National staffer Rakha, however, the problem of engagement is about understanding and appreciation as well as infrastructure. “Pessimistically, I think perhaps westerners are not as interested in the contemporary Arab world as we like to think they are, and when something is written in a language so different from French or Spanish and published by a small house with no contacts on the other side of the Mediterranean, there is no reason to expect publishers or readers who might feel culturally superior to pay attention to it,” he says.

“The irony, of course, is that a lot of Arabic writing could actually be very relevant and engaging to westerners at the basic, human, universal level – if only they had the means and inclination to read it. Should the resources become available to translate and publicise the right books in the right contexts, which I feel they increasingly are, I think we can expect the situation to improve. But the most encouraging development is that many Arab publishers are increasingly aware of the global publishing industry and working hard to reach out.”

The National

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Cry my beloved poetry

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Cover of "Lynch (One)"
Cover of Lynch (One)

Spring brought poetry from the inaugural round of the Dubai International Poetry Festival (4-10 March) to this week’s issue of Cairo’s most popular literary publication, Akhbar Al Adab, which dedicated its Bustan (Orchard) department to poetry criticism and poets’ testimonies: Youssef Rakha considers a maligned genre

In a video interview about Lost Highway, the American director David Lynch describes his ideal film as an abstract composition, a sort of audiovisual symphony. Then again, Lynch says that a film seldom works for the viewer without the benefit of a compelling narrative. In his own work he would rather do away with the narrative side of film-making, he says, but he endeavours to have enough story-line to keep people watching.
Lynch suggests there is a chasm between imagery and storytelling – which seems particularly relevant to contemporary Arabic writing in Egypt. Since the establishment critic Gabir Asfour made his millennial declaration that we are living in “the Age of the Novel” (zaman arruwayah), the idea of a contest between poets and novelists in which the latter are beating the former has sparked much ludicrous debate.
No reliable statistics have established that more novels are being sold now than a decade or two ago, or more novels than “diwans” of poems. But this is the prevailing belief; and the response of poets has ranged from publishing novels to holding a personal grudge against Asfour.
***
At the JW Marriott, Kuwait, attendance of the annual Alarabi Magazine Symposium (held on 2-4 March to mark the Kuwaiti institution’s 51st anniversary) was embarrassingly low until the final session – devoted to poetry. Prodded perhaps by embarrassment, perhaps by the presence at the podium of the south Lebanon poet Mohammad Ali Shamseddin – together with the Kuwaiti poets Saadiyah Mifrih and Salah Dabshah – previously m.i.a. invitees now nearly filled the hall.
Ironically it was Asfour of all people who replaced the co-ordinator of the session, the poet and patron of literature Abdulaziz Al-Babbatin, who could not make it to the seminar. Asfour was joined at the podium by another establishment critic, Salah Fadl – speaking in his capacity as head of the jury of the Abu Dhabi-based television programme Amir Ashshu’ara’ (Prince of Poets).
Amir Al-Shu’ara’ is the standard-Arabic edition of the pan-Arab Nabati (or Bedouin Colloquial) verse competition programme Sha’ir Al-Milyon (Millions’ Poet) – phenomenally popular in the Gulf – in which millions are awarded to the best poems written in free verse (ashshi’r alhorr, also known as shi’r attaf’ilah). Free verse breaks up and intermingles different metric schemes from ‘Aroud Al-Khalil (the compendium of metrical rules put together by Ibn Ahmad Al-Farahidi in the eighth century), partly or wholly doing away with rhyme. The taf’ilah – as this form’s rhythmic unit came to be called – may have emerged as early as the 1930s, but it did not achieve recognition until the 1960s.
Though some Sixties Generation poets wrote prose (Mohammad Al-Maghout and Sargon Boulos), the last generation of household-name poets (Mahmoud Darwish and Nizar Qabbani) wrote free verse. After its heyday towards the end of the 1960s, free verse continued to appear, without making much of an impact, until the emergence in the 1990s of a new kind of prose poem showed up its anachronism more clearly than ever before.
***
Fadl did not cite the pre-eminance of the prose poem as a reason to reject the Age of the Novel, but he did point out that rejecting it is not unjustified. The prose poem remains the one original and definable form to have cohered and stood out since the 1990s, when said Age is supposed to have dawned. The novel, on the other hand, has fluctuated considerably, defined and redefined itself, and dithered at many crossroads without moving very far in any direction.
Whatever you think about this, ferocious exchanges will probably continue to take place. What is missing is a responsible discussion of what each genre actually constitutes.
The case for Arabic poetry in prose is resolved in practise; in recent memory hardly a single self-respecting talent has produced any verse. Yet it remains officially on the table, while “novel” – the youngest genre in the language, barely 100 years old, as opposed to the 1,400-year-old verse tradition – has become the catch-all term for almost any literary writing typeset in paragraphs rather than lines.
Memoir, autobiography, travel writing, sequence of short stories or essays, reportage, erotica, and of course extended poem: all are unthinkingly stamped NOVEL (by writers and publishers alike). In the absence of corrective classification, this makes Asfour’s epochal declaration redundant.
With the gradual emergence of popular non-fiction books like Khalid Al-Khamisi’s Taxi, classification is slowly improving. But the prose poem is still at best ignored. At worst it is subjected to a notoriously retarded attack by the poet Ahmad Abdelmo’ti Higazi, a didactic figure whose authority rests less on either enduring significance or sales figures than short-lived critical acclaim in the 1960s and a career in government institutions since.
***
Had Fadl mentioned the prose poem by name, however, he would have underlined the fact that, in restricting its scope to free verse, Amir Al-Shu’ara’ is in effect ignoring the most interesting poetry being written in Arabic today. Even within the Gulf, where verse traditions are more alive and tastes more conservative than elsewhere, only prose poets (Ibrahim Al-Mulla and Khalid Al-Budour in the UAE, for example) have achieved pan-Arab recognition.
Instead, Fadl stressed the role of TV – and, implicitly, of course, cash – in spreading the word about the Arabs’ trademark legacy at a time of relative decline. He did not touch on the absurdity inherent in quantifying “the success of the poem” compared to another poem. He did not deal with the implications of evaluating poetry through a system of points awarded by s.m.s., among other means. And he did not suggest that there may be better ways to financially serve poetry (which there are: the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, which funds both programmes, still does not have a single publishing house to its name). Only Shamseddin, the most cogent speaker by far, made any reference to the difference between poetry and verse.


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Perhaps inevitably, in the presence of Asfour, the proceedings centred on poetry during the Age of the Novel – whether or not, and how (if not through television) poetry can “extend” into an Age other than its own. But the to-and-fro between Fadl and Asfour failed to show how, while the prose poem is attacked or ignored, the novel which is not a novel acts to obscure the meaning of narrative. On the one hand there is the perception that novels may be selling because they tell stories; on the other, the fact that, whether or not they are selling, the books called novels are by and large un-story-like.
***
Egypt has an emergent, as yet vaguely articulated magic realist movement. Its authors – Hamdi Abugolail, Ibrahim Farghali, Mustafa Zikri, and, more recently, Tarek Imam, among others – are more or less atypically un-poetic. But aside from the new fictional realms intimated – or, rather, promised – by their work, the novel per se has contributed little to Arabic literature since the 1990s. Its function has been to transport the achievements of the prose poem to a place where they are safe from being attacked for making a clean break with the ‘Aroud. Higazi suffered censure for his pre-modern stand.
But someone has yet to attack the novel for identity theft.
In retrospect, notwithstanding the Age, extensions across or within, many have come to see free verse as an involuntary stopgap. It was the means for a verse-dominated culture to ease itself away from the ancient drum beats of the desert and the twinkle-twinkle cadences of a love song by Om Kulthoum – past the 1960s countless affirmations of and arguments with the aptly named ‘amoud (pillar) of traditional verse – and into an image-driven, down-to-earth music all its own.
Like many facets of Arab modernity, it seems, the free verse revolution was half-hearted and timorous. It could not be effective until the liberation of language and emotion that it implied was carried to its logical conclusion. But when eventually, at last, it came time for people to realise their poetic modernity in full, they ended up going on stage to an all but empty auditorium. Still, they performed anyway.
***
By the 1990s, in occasional publications like Al-Kitabah Al-Ukhrah and Al-Garad, incandescent talents like Iman Mersal and Ahmad Yamani were reinventing language. They de-ideologised discourse, de-nationalised human concerns, and acknowledged their (post) modern identity in genuine rather than authentic registers.
Accepting bare-headed status, they no longer wore the fez of free verse, much less the turban of the ‘Aroud. But it was hard to prove that, in taking these off, they had not slipped on Ataturk’s self-hating hat behind Higazi’s back. What can only be described as ancestor worship came in the way of Nineties Generation poets being immediately recognised or celebrated.
So did the insecurity of taf’ilah gurus suddenly realising that their role had not been quite as “historical” as they had thought, and that their insurgent energy may in fact have been reactionary.
Anyway, by then talented Sixties Generation writers like Ibrahim Aslan and Mohammad Al-Bisati – precisely by debasing narrative – had contributed to the loss of what little readership existed when they emerged on the scene. Themselves arguably frustrated prose poets, they excelled at short stories but caught the germ of obsessive novel disorder.
Now that the readership seems to be regrouping (around them as much as younger so called novelists), the Nineties prose poem – the only true agent of change – is the farthest from being a beneficiary of the good fortune.

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