Issue No. 605
Opinion
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26 Sept. - 2 October 2002 Issue No. 605 Opinion |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
The Finding the moment
The path to creativity passes, inevitably, through the subconscious. The experiences that the novelist undergoes in daily life, the historical moment in which he lives, each finds a way into his writing, filtered by the ups and downs of temperament. In fortunate times the writer finds his rhythm and it is all smooth sailing. In other times, the going is rough and the path strewn with hurdles. I went through a rough patch between 1952 and 1957, the five years that followed the July revolution.
The bulk of my work, up to that time, was inspired by the observation and criticism of pre-revolutionary Egypt. Then the things I was writing about disappeared, they became irrelevant, and almost overnight. The July revolution was changing the face of Egyptian society in a radical way, and the new system had not become clear enough for me. I did not feel I could still write about pre-1952 life. It seemed pointless. So, I stopped writing, and felt that my career as a novelist had ended. I turned to the cinema instead and for a while became a scriptwriter. Years passed, and suddenly something happened. I felt, once again, this gripping desire to write, the exquisite excitement of telling a story. The first novel I wrote, after this five-year hiatus was Awlad Haratina (Children of the Alley), and it meant a lot to me.
Based on an interview by Mohamed Salmawy
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