1 - 7 November 2001
Issue No.558
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 1 - 7 November 2001 Issue No.558 |
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The ultimate protagonist
A journalist recently asked me about Cairo, a main character in almost all my works, particularly the Trilogy. What, he asked, does the city represent to me? I told him truthfully that Cairo, to me, is the basis of all else, the mother who begets all my characters and the incidents they play out.
Characters in a novel, I pointed out, cannot exist outside their geographic context; at least not for me. And the vast majority of my characters belong in Cairo, which remains my mother, too, in life as well as literature. The historical and cultural richness of this city makes it impossible for a novelist like myself to ignore it or cast a blind eye over the immense complexity of its identity. Cairo is unlike other cities: it breathes constantly within its people's spirit. It has consistently given my novels, too, life; indeed, it is the life source.
Quoting Cavafy's poem, "The City" -- which, though it might bear a resemblance to its real-life counterpart, Alexandria, remains a city of the mind -- the poet went on to ask me to what extent the real Cairo can be identified with my own inner, private city. I assured him that they are identical: the Cairo I know is the Cairo that I present in my novels; and many a foreign reader of mine has testified to discovering the real Cairo through the mediation of these novels. Thus there is reason to believe that my literary conception of the city (at least the old city) is virtually identical with reality.
Based on an interview by Mohamed Salmawy.
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