3 - 9 January 2002
Issue No.567
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 3 - 9 January 2002 Issue No.567 |
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Plain talk
Travellers came to Egypt and travellers left. Some were simply tourists who arrived to view the sites, delighting in the exotic; others, more observant, recorded their impressions in books and articles. Not a few found the country a source of inspiration for literature -- poems, novels and short stories. Indeed, Egypt could probably file a justifiable claim to be the most written about country. In poetry, the romantic movement of the early 19th century found inspiration in the exotic imagery of Egypt, although the poets in question did not always come here. In 1818 John Keats was sufficiently inspired by a visit to the British Museum to write seven poems with references to Egypt. And in the same year Keats competed with Shelley and Leigh Hunt to compose a sonnet entitled "To the Nile." In Hyperion, Keats was more directly inspired by Museum relics; and Shelley's Ozymandias was no doubt a result of the arrival of the head known as "young Memnon" there, "without doubt the finest specimen of ancient Egyptian sculpture yet discovered," as it was described at the time.
One can cite dozens of writers and artists who visited Egypt, recording their impressions in a literary form. Gustave Flaubert, one of many literary giants, landed in Alexandria in the company of Maxime du Camp in 1849, producing a number of letters and notes that were later collected. Anthony Trollope came in 1858, followed by Amelia Edwards and Lucy Duff Gordon -- all of whom published detailed accounts of their visits. Others fictionalised their experience of the country: Lawrence Durrell produced The Alexandria Quartet, Olivia Manning set much of her fiction in Egypt, D.J. Enright wrote the Academic Year, P.H. Newby the Egyptian trilogy made up of Revolution and the Roses, A Guest and His Going and Something to Answer For, not to mention his famous Picnic to Sakkara. Most of those writing about Egypt have been British, French or German and, more recently, American. Yet there are scores of other European writers who found Egypt inspiring: C.P. Cavafy immortalised Alexandria in his poems, while Tsirkas produced a full-length novel in 10 days following the nationalisation of the Suez Canal.
More recently, I read the Arabic translation of a novel by a Greek writer, Nikos Amathoros, Ibn El-Balad (freely translated as "the salt of the earth," it literally means "the son of the country"). It is a combination of fiction, autobiography, history and politics that tells the story of a Greek family that emigrated to Egypt and adopted the country as its homeland. The author opens with a description of the house at which he was born, in Al-Manasra, a popular neighbourhood not far from Ataba Square. Set in the 1930s, the novel describes the atmosphere of economic recession. The family in question could scarcely eke out their daily bread. Yet the author nostalgically remembers how he mixed with Egyptian children, sharing their joys and sorrows, eating foul from the same dish with hot baladi bread bought from the bakery next door. His descriptions of life in this popular neighbourhood are paradoxically reminiscent of Lane's imagery in Manners and Customs of Modern Egyptians. Like Lane, he had perfect Arabic, and this enabled him to penetrate the fabric of society.
Beautifully translated by Naim Attia, the book testifies to the abiding impact of Egypt on writers of the West. An expert on modern Greek literature and a writer himself, Attia has produced a translation that reads like an original. And in this he was no doubt aided by the spirit of the book, as Egyptian as it is Greek. Here is an example of how Egypt, rather than being an exotic literary subject or a fascinating traveller's destination, can also enter into a European's spirit, informing not only the inner cartography of his life but the spirit with which he records it -- a traveller who came to stay.
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