Democracy is the Answer by Al Aswany Alaa;Harris Russell;Byrne Aran;Naylor Paul;Cleave Sarah;

Author:Al Aswany, Alaa;Harris, Russell;Byrne, Aran;Naylor, Paul;Cleave, Sarah;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Egypt, Revolution, Democracy
ISBN: 9781909942721
Publisher: The Gingko Library
Published: 2015-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

Democracy is the answer.

PN

A Great Writer and a Good Friend

12 November 2012

It was thirty years ago and I had just taken my first tentative steps into the literary world. I had written a short story which I wanted to get published in the Sabah el-Kheir magazine. I made an appointment with Louis Greiss, the editor-in-chief who passed me on to his features editor, Alaa el-Deeb. I was awestruck at meeting one of Egypt’s greatest writers but Alaa greeted me warmly and set about reading my first short story. When he had finished reading, he looked up at me and said: “It’s a good story, but I have a few comments if you’d like to hear them.”

“I certainly would,” I replied.

For a whole hour Alaa gave me a useful lesson about writing. He told me that the problem with Arabic writing was fuzziness. We have to write precisely what we intend. He advised me to use punctuation more carefully. I have not forgotten his very words: “We write the way we speak. Every time you make a pause, or slow down or speed up the rhythm of the words, there has to be a reason.”

I left Alaa’s office astonished that a great writer like him would have so much time for a budding and unknown author.

My story was published in Sabah el-Kheir, with my first collection of short stories appearing a few years later. I sent a copy to Alaa and he gave it a glowing review in the magazine. I was over the moon. Alaa’s glowing review was a springboard for any young writer. We got to know each other better and I became his honoured friend for a quarter of a century. Alaa was a great novelist who wrote of a uniquely humane world in a beautiful crystalline language which was matched by no other author. His most important books were his famous Lemon Flowers, and his superb trilogy Tearless Children, Moon over the Morass and Eyes of the Violet, which dealt with the alienation of Egyptians during the period of “opening up” in the 1980s. As well as all his novel-writing, the great man also continued practicing applied criticism for fifty years in his column in the weekly Book Juice.

Every week he would publish a straightforward yet deep essay on a literary text which aimed at educating the general reader and drawing them to the mysteries of literature. Generation after generation of Egyptians and Arabs became literary aesthetes due to Alaa el-Deeb. I can remember reading Book Juice every week and than dashing off to get whatever it was Alaa had written about in his column. Another major role played by Alaa el-Deeb was discovering and publicising new literary talent. The moment he read something by a gifted author, he would be writing about it, contacting the author and doing all he could to promote him. Most of the glittering names in the literary world were first presented by Alaa and cut their first teeth with him. He

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