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Al-Ahram Weekly 23 - 29 March 2000 Issue No. 474 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 23 - 29 March 2000 Issue No. 474
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons First-hand experience
I have read voraciously throughout my life. Every time I was interested in a subject -- and my interests were always diverse -- I would read everything I could lay my hands on, however remotely related. I would go to the National Library to read the classics, and regularly frequented the book shops that sold works in modern literature. I read novels, of course, but also history, philosophy, politics, science... Human curiosity is limitless, but one life is nowhere near enough to satisfy it.
Today, my age does not allow me to read as I used to. My health is not good enough for me to investigate the different topics that interest me. I neither see nor hear as well as I used to, and therefore I cannot follow up on current events or developments in world art and literature.
Friends read the newspapers to me every day, and on Fridays or holidays one of my daughters takes over this task. Apart from this, I am completely isolated from life, although I do ask my friends about what is going on in the world when they come to visit me. Books, music and art continue to fascinate me, and the sense of knowing a little about new trends is very important to my well-being, both physical and mental. So I always ask, if only to feel that I am part of things. Still, I do not always receive a satisfactory response: to experience things at a remove, as it were, through someone else's eyes and ears, is not at all the same as feeling, hearing and seeing them for oneself. Nor do I feel that investigation is as thorough as it used to be: people do not always seek the heart of the matter, or attempt to gather as much information as they possibly can. This laziness -- almost a form of paralysis -- is a general phenomenon. I remember a time when books were translated immediately after their publication abroad. That time seems long gone today.
Based on an interview by Mohamed Salmawy.
