The author's stance
The author is a citizen and like any other citizen will respond to major events. If people take up arms, for example, the author may join them. Perhaps he can only perform his role as an author once such events are over; he certainly cannot let go of his weapon as the battle unfolds in order to sit down and write a novel or a play.
It is only once the turmoil has ceased that writing becomes possible. It requires a significant period of time during which the artist can contemplate events before restructuring them in the necessary transformation into art.
Some art accompanies the battle, it is true. This can happen: it happens with certain kinds of poetry, for example. But such poems tend to remain relevant only in the circumstances under which they were written. Major literary works, by contrast, emerge once the author has assimilated and processed the experience. The writing of a novel, a play or an epic is a demanding process and requires a lot of time; I know of no one who can write a novel on a war while that war unfolds. As for recent events, we all witnessed the crisis in Iraq, hour by hour. There will come a day when that crisis begins to make an appearance in contemporary Arabic literature.
Based on an interview by Mohamed Salmawy.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 22 - 28 May 2003 (Issue No. 639)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/639/op6.htm