Malak Luka: Story-teller

The secret is in the listening

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The sight of Malak Luka working on his books is one familiar to me. At such times he seems like a man sailing toward the unknown, bent on adventure, catching dreams out of thin air, weaving threads of thought into carpets of imagination. A writer's life, some think, is one of isolation. Not Luka's, however. He has a day job as a chief accountant at the Department of Prisons. He is also associate editor of the magazine Amn Al- Asima (The Capital's Security), managing editor of the magazine Sugun (Prisons) and chief editor of the magazine Bustan Al-Usur (The Orchard of the Ages). He is also a member of a number of civil organisations such as the Writers Union, the Journalists Association, Amnesty International, the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, the Novel Club, and the Love Children Society.

Luka likes to attend international and local conferences dedicated to children's literature. Over the years he has travelled widely and attended book fairs in Kuwait, Damascus, Amman, Tunis, Melbourne, and New Jersey, to name but some cities. Some of his books such as Medical Student Saves Millions, Student and Inventor, Plant Story, or The Right to Play have been assigned to Egyptian school children. Others have been translated into English.

A successful journalist, Luka has interviewed dozens of public figures, ministers, police chiefs, writers and artists. He produced various programmes for Egyptian television, such as "Book and Prize" and "Top Stories". He wrote several plays for the theatre, including "The Devil's Tree", "In the Execution Chamber", and "Trial under the Cover of Darkness".

Notwithstanding his varied artistic career, it is story-telling that has been his passion since an early age. "I was hardly 10 when I began inventing stories and telling them to my school friends during the recess between classes. Then I started writing down these stories, elaborating on them in response to the questions my friends posed and the comments they made. Their reactions were essential. If they liked the story-line, I knew I was on the right track. This is how at such an early age I learned the most valuable lesson a writer needs: that one has to listen and listen well. My school time stories later developed into a collection of 32 books called Bedtime Stories," he recalls.

"If we listen carefully to children, we will learn how they see the world around them and how they express what they think. We will know what interests them and what annoys and scares them. We need to know that, not because we need to please or placate our children, but because we need to educate them. For years, I have made a point of listening to children and discussing things with them. I benefited from the language they use, the expressions they come up with -- their unique view of the universe."

Luka has some 200 fiction titles to his name. He also wrote a simplified scientific encyclopaedia, with titles such as "Medical Student Saves Millions", "Student and Inventor", "Son of a Blacksmith Becomes Scientist", "Magic Potion", and "Microbe Destroyer". And he wrote a sports encyclopaedia for children, entitled Sports for All. Most of these works are, unfortunately, out of print. "His style is simple and delightful, suitable to the minds of the young. It entices children to read," wrote one reviewer in Al-Ahram. "He writes with extreme care, weighs his words, and explores with his pen a world that is at once difficult and enjoyable. He captures with the eyes of an artist various human situations and characters, and presents these to us in an accessible manner," wrote another in Rose Al-Youssef.

Children, Luka says, like to get into a story from the first line, not just the first page. And they like fair endings, with the good guys winning and the bad guys losing. "But they do not like victory to come easy. They are delighted in seeing their heroes fight hard and long, against the odds. They need humour, magic, and continual surprise. One other thing: children are willing to accept any subject you come up with, so long as it is conveyed in a language they understand."

"I never make the hero win through sheer power," Luka notes. "The whole point of civilisation is our ability to replace brute force with thought. I avoid stories that revolve around a Tarzan-styled hero, or someone with supernatural powers. Such indiscriminate reliance on force negates the most important achievement of civilisation. I don't want children to grow up believing in the law of the jungle. I also make evil forces look banal and boring. I do this on purpose. One can make evil people look interesting, at least in some aspects, but you have to be very careful, for children notice that and can internalise it. And, as a rule, I will never make a person derided for what he is; for the colour of his skin, his class, race or religion. Acceptance of others is a sign of refinement and civility."

Children need reassurance, and Luka is careful to make hope and integrity the main themes of his writing. "In my stories, I always end on a note of hope. I try to avoid boredom, indifference and despair; these things are not part of my writing, neither is crime. I tell stories that inspire, and although they contain a fair amount of detail, I have learnt that excessive detail is unnecessary."

Luka's writing is inspired and influenced by the works of a number of international writers: Anton Chekhov, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, and, from the Arab world, Kamel El-Kilani. Luka notes that although there are in the Arab world authors who write for children, we no longer have great children's writers -- people with the stature and brilliance of El-Kilani. "This is why children's books do not survive for generations, as El-Kilani's do, for example." A successful children's writer, says Luka, is one who communicates well and sometimes identifies with children. "Such a writer has to be able to visualise the dynamics of childhood; to relate to the vitality, fears and desires of children. If one is really good, one's books should be able to survive for more than one generation. The ultimate test of one's abilities is when successive generations can enjoy what one has written. Imagine how rewarding this would be."

Luka has authored numerous short stories, including "Wedding with No Invitations", "The Bride", and "The Other Man". He favours a more conventional approach within this genre of writing and is sceptical of the validity of experimentalism in Arabic literature. "The short story has a central place in our literary life. It provides excitement and interest in concentrated doses. Some young writers experiment with new styles, but the conventional style remains the most popular. Experimentation breaks the pace of the story-line, blurs the identity of the protagonists and restructures the patterns of story-telling. This can be counter-productive," he explains.

Literary experimentation should keep in touch with the tastes of society, Luka believes. When experimental writing appeared in the West, it was to reflect certain patterns of living. It highlighted ideas that would otherwise have remained obscure. "The experimental trend in European art and literature came about as a natural outcome to the fast-breaking development of these societies, to the continual changes in society, science, and technology. It was a case of form catching up with content. Writers used abstract forms to convey the fragmentation of human reality -- to reconstruct this reality and bring forth the hidden aspects of its complexity."

Things happen differently in our societies, Luka argues. "We haven't undergone great scientific leaps or social upheavals. So, we shouldn't expect our readers to appreciate western-style experimentalism. In our part of the world, the short story still retains its conventional form and flavour, its coherent story- line. When I write short stories, I stay close to daily reality -- to societal concerns and what's happening around us."

Luka studied philosophy in college and although he still finds it a fascinating field, he draws a line between the abstract ideas of philosophers and the colourful mosaic of story-telling. An Egyptian critic once noted that "although [Luka] studied philosophy and absorbed old and new doctrines, [he] does not speak down to us from the top of a pedestal, or contemplate society merely through a philosophical perspective."

"The images I collect eventually find their way into my stories," says Luka. "I try to convey to the reader the mix of agony and joy that is human life. Sometimes, I would relay the picture as it is, almost verbatim, from a scene I'd encountered in real life. Often I focus on customs and traditions that are familiar to us." This is indeed what he did in "The Well-Heeled and the Ill-Heeled" and "Prison for the Brave". Sometimes he highlights psychological or mental moods, as he did in "Fear Kills" and "Prior to the Execution" which satirise some prevalent Egyptian customs.

Luka's literature portrays a world endowed with hope and promise. "Although our society has changed drastically and lost much of its purity of principle and purpose, I still go for optimism and hope. I still side with right and goodness against evil and wrongdoing." This is particularly clear in "Choice" and "Dialogue with Conscience", in both of which justice ultimately prevails.

Luka is even optimistic as to the future of children's stories in Egypt. "Mrs Suzanne Mubarak is helping young talents express their voices. A writing contest is organised annually for this specific purpose. The government is playing a significant role through the Reading for All Festival sponsored by Mrs Mubarak. The festival has spawned successful projects such as the Read to Your Child and Book for All series, each including thousands of titles, all affordable and catering to various tastes, needs and ages. The state also established a number of public libraries in the various governorates, including the renowned Bibliotheca Alexandrina."

Can children's literature be funny, can one write comedy for children? "Within limits, for you cannot use harsh or obscene language. Extreme forms of sarcasm are also better avoided. Comedy is difficult in principle, and it is even more so when one is writing for children." Luka advises children's writers to choose words with tangible contents, ones which reflect things that can be seen, heard, touched or smelled. Abstract words should be kept to a minimum. Similarly, the structure of the story-line is best kept straightforward avoiding digressions and flashbacks, stories should have few characters and events should be kept rather simple.

Luka is quite flexible about his writing routine. "I do not associate writing with any certain hour or time of day. One has to have the urge first; for one can't force oneself. Thankfully, I've always had the urge to write, ever since I was young. Yet I am cautious of letting writing interfere with other aspects of my life, otherwise I would get bored. I spend much of my time reading, which itself inspires my writing. When I get an idea for a book, I start by researching the topic, then I choose a title, and finally I start writing."

Good story-telling, says Luka, involves research, observation, and immersion in society and its ways. When Alex Haley, author of the best-selling novel Roots, wanted to write a book about African heritage he first travelled to western Africa and spent time listening to local story-tellers. Even in America there is an annual festival for story-tellers, notes Luka. "American story-tellers have their own society, with 5,800 members, and the society has books and tapes of orally- relayed stories."

The Arab world, especially Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia, is rich with its oral tradition. The Thousand and One Nights is the best known and documented of this tradition, but there are also the epics, such as those of Abu Zeid Al-Hilali or Antar and Ablah. Those are sources of infinite inspiration for story- tellers, and such oral heritage and its place as an independent art form is worthy of conservation, stresses Luka.

"The people of a certain village get a television set," Luka tells me, "and television is like a miracle to them at first. They watch it all the time for two weeks. Then they lose interest. A visitor asks, why have you lost interest? They say: we don't need television; we have our own story teller. But the television knows more than the story-teller does, says the visitor. The television knows more, but the story-teller knows us, comes the answer." Luka's point is clear. "The tools of the successful story-teller are his eyes, his facial expressions, how he times the moments of silence, the way he doles out action, the way he punctuates events, the variety in performance, the pitch and timbre of his voice."

Luka and his wife Sabah live in Cairo. They have five children and two grandchildren. His most recently published work is Copts: Origin and Conflict from the First to the Twentieth Century. Currently, he is working on two new books: Many Days' Talk, an autobiography, and Words on the Walls of Time, a study in linguistic folklore.

By Profile by Samir Sobhi