In search of the carnivalesque
Sonali Pahwa takes a random seminar sample
Perhaps you are a literary sophisticate and the list of seminars at the Book Fair falls easily into lists of those you like and those from which you run. Or perhaps you feel overwhelmed, scanning down the preposterous list of books you should know but don't. Who are these people? Did that book just win an award?
I wondered if I should spend a few evenings at the Greek Club to catch up with the current round of name-dropping.
But time was short, and my intellectual pretensions would not allow me to skip the seminars altogether. So I picked a couple of recognisable names, plus a wild card, and off I went on the bumpy bus to Madinet Nasr. The three seminars I chose were loosely linked by a focus on women. I reasoned that these were likely to feature fresh discussion rather than the cherished debates ritually revived each January. My picks were: Texts from women's theatre translated by Sanaa Seleiha, Discussion of Mai Khaled's collection of short stories Nuqoush wa Taranim, and The Image of Women in Egyptian Caricature.
The focus of the first event, Sanaa Seleiha's collection of translated plays by women writers was, I was surprised to learn, a pioneering effort. You would think that the Egyptian theatre, among whose more astute critics, influential administrators and promising directors women are gloriously over-represented, would have produced a book like this sooner. But all present noted the uniqueness of Seleiha's achievement and radiated a positive glow within the cavernous tent of the Culture Café as it flapped sullenly in the wind. The panel consisted of Cairo University professor Amal Mazhar, head of Al-Hanager and professor of French literature Hoda Wasfi, directors Effat Yehia and Caroline Khalil, and actor Salwa Mohamed Ali, as well as the book's author.
Poet and critic Girgis Shukri, who served as moderator, began with high praise for the sensitivity of the translation and then asked why there were so few Egyptian women playwrights. The translated volume evidently addressed a lack on the local scene. The eloquent outpourings that followed confirmed that this lack had been deeply felt. Hoda Wasfi outlined a history of women's plays down the ages, and emphasised the achievements of these writers in reclaiming the female body from masculine perspectives. Salwa Mohamed Ali read from one of the translations, inflecting the literary Arabic with an intimacy that I would not have thought possible. Only one of Seleiha's translations was in the Egyptian colloquial -- a conversation between a mother and daughter in a kitchen -- and someone remarked that this could not possibly have been conveyed in literary Arabic.
Reservations about the idea of transnational sisterhood melted quickly before the fervour with which the younger directors spoke of their affection for the plays of Caryl Churchill and Edna O'Brien. Effat Yehia's first effort as a director was a production at the National Theatre of O'Brien's Virginia (translated by Seleiha), and after more than a decade she found she still remembered her lines -- and performed them on the spot. Caroline Khalil, who once directed Churchill's The Witches, commented that its treatment of the story of the witches of Salem, expressed contemporary realities more truthfully than many other plays she had read. Seleiha affirmed that she had sought out dramatic moments unique to women across time and place.
At question time a young man, who introduced himself as a student at Al-Azhar, came up to the microphone and asked, in classical diction and measured periods, how the author could possibly believe there was a shared experience between women in the West and in Egypt. The spectacle of a smug youth tossing a gauntlet to seasoned intellectuals who made brutally short work of him was one of the truly fair-like moments of the fair, suggesting mediaeval precursors at which live combat was part of the entertainment.
The random encounters of afternoon sessions at the Culture Café, when curious passersby drift in, are replaced on wintry evenings by dedicated little groups. And dedication is essential when the writer of the café's previous session is engaged in an endless cosy chat with his interlocutor and your panel is hopelessly delayed.
While marking time before the discussion of Mai Khaled's Nuqoush wa Taranim I tried to guess which of the three women sitting with the organiser was the author. They were of a similar age and very different styles. It turned out to be the lady in the richly coloured higab, which revealed just a glimpse of blonde hair. A new generation of women writers is emerging, I mused, apropos of the previous panel, but it has yet to develop a signature look.
The moderator, who seemed to know everyone in the audience, gushed that the women on the panel were "like flowers". First she invited the author to read the short story that provided the book's title. It revealed felicity and flexibility with literary language. Mai Khaled's prose is lyrical, and she read it almost as if it were poetry. Descriptions of the mundane gave the literary prose the feel of everyday, colloquial language. An extended discussion followed, partly keen analysis of the book and partly the usual mutual admiration society. The mention of characters in the stories, including a domineering teacher, a stage actress and a maid in love with Mohamed Abdel-Wahab, suggested a varied collection that would make for an enjoyable read.
But since the finer details of the stories went over my head my attention wandered in search of amusement. The graphic design poster which has replaced the traditional handpainted banners that used to announce Culture Café events proclaimed its sophistication with a floating image of a white bar reading simply 'http:' I was beginning to wonder what use could possibly be made of recordings by three different cameramen documenting the event when a fourth camera appeared. A little sideshow ensued: a television presenter stepped into the blazing spotlight, murmured some presumably pithy comments on the literary circus into his microphone, and vanished in under five minutes.
As the day wore on the carnivalesque aspects of the fair seemed more and more appealing. Better to go for honest entertainment than to seek it out surreptitiously. I was hopeful that my wild-card selection, Women in Egyptian Caricature from Hatshepsut to Umm Sahloul, would provide the required levity. Someone walked in with a promising stack of picture boards. Men with wild grey hair, loud striped scarves and polka-dot shirts descended on the tent. The caricaturists did not look as if they took themselves too seriously. When the picture boards were tacked up on the tent walls, Umm Sahloul turned out to be a bony woman with frizzy hair and an improbably glamorous dress, like a drag queen. The Egyptian Mona Lisa was an unenigmatic bint al-balad with a coy smile. Hatshepsut was just a statue.
There was a casual, jokey air in the packed tent. Moderator Taha Hussein beamed at his fan club and welcomed a delegation from the Maakouka magazine for caricature from Al- Mahalla. He noted the magazine's efforts to reach out to the provinces. All of this was conducted in an earthy dialect, itself a relief after the mannered cadences of more literary panels.
When the discussion did get serious, it moved into accidental farce. The moderator sketched a rather far-fetched history of Egyptian caricature extending back to Hatshepsut. This was the kind of tedious lecture that itself tends to generate caricatures in the margins of your notebook. Then a more scholarly speaker, also the panel's lone woman, took the microphone. She presented a thoughtful analysis of the tendency for Egyptian women to use verbal rather than visual satire, of stereotypes of domineering, dangerous women in cartoons, etc. But the good old boys on the panel were not listening at all. They smoked, chatted, even scribbled caricatures which they displayed to the audience while their colleague was still speaking.
When she was finished the moderator declared a welcome end to literature and "doctors". Another panelist presented a mock thesis on the history of caricature which he threatened to stretch out for three hours. So much for reflection on the question of misogyny in the cartoon business. The old boys might dish out critique, but they couldn't take it.
