Ahmad Abdulatif, writer
A 46-year-old Cairo native, Ahmad Abdulatif has dedicated a good part of his life to journalism and the translation of works from Spanish to Arabic. Influenced by the uprisings that shook his country in 2011, his latest work, The sculptor’s book (Books of Bad Company), delves into the impact of religion on current societies.
What was your main inspiration for the novel?
I wrote it in the wake of the Egyptian revolution of January 25 (2011). Then he would have been 32 or 33 years old and, like many other young people, he had a lot of hopes that little by little faded. We realized that we were not going to get what we were demanding. Also, I live in the center, very close to Tahrir Square. Many young people died there. I had the feeling that the world, and Cairo in particular, was becoming a rotten city, an ugly place. I felt very overwhelmed. From there came the idea of a dystopian novel about a destroyed city. Along with the repression of the Army, we were witnessing the rise of Islamist groups. The conflict had become something between two sides: military and Muslim brothers. I was in a totally different position: a democratic side that demanded a modern Egypt. From this historical context the novel was born, which also raises many existential and philosophical questions: where we come from, where we are going…
How did you start writing it?
I usually start with an image rather than a phrase. The first was abstract but also realistic because what I saw was an island and different sides in a very bloody war, and then, a sculptor was moving with a small boat with rows to the shore of a new island. This, by the way, happened to me in some way, because in 2014 I migrated to Spain.
Is fantasy, or dystopia, an excuse to talk about reality?
It’s my way of approaching and seeing things. I do not see reality as it appears on television, but in a parallel world that becomes a metaphor through which I see the real world. I don’t decide these things before writing. I don’t think, for example, that I’m going to write a dystopia, but that’s how it comes to me. I think that reality is too big to understand, so what I do when writing a novel is turn it into something smaller, as if I were making a model or a map, and on that small plane the characters live. I make reality small so I can understand it. From there different things emerge: surrealism, fantasy, metaphysics…, or everything together within the same novel. But I don’t know how my mind works, I only see images that I try to translate into sentences.
In an interview he said that this book represents him.
There is always a book closer to the author. As a person and writer, I care a lot about Arab Islamic culture and understanding it is very complicated. There are layers upon layers in an ancient history full of conflicts, blood, principles and values of many different dynasties, invasions, etc. What interests me is understanding not only religion, but its effect on people’s lives. For me, for example, more than being religious, we have a type of religiosity. If you come to Egypt in Ramadan you will see many decorations on the street, everyone is fasting and appears to be very religious, but the truth is that it is a social phenomenon. In my works I ask myself questions that have to do with this culture, which I often criticize. In The sculptor’s book There is an essential question about the Creator: what does it mean for him to be all-powerful? I mean: does it get into people’s lives and shape our destiny or is it outside and not affecting people’s lives, who act freely? This is a very Arabic question that remains outside the religious canon, because in our world it is always said that God organizes our life, our destiny and gives us health and illness… In the novel there is a god who makes creatures, the sculptor , but it does not have control over them, rather each one chooses its destiny. This question of Arab Islamic culture can create problems for me, although luckily it has not. I am concerned about Egyptian culture, Arab culture, and today’s contemporary questions: how do religion and culture affect society? How are Islamist groups formed? What power do the military or politicians have? At the heart of each work are questions about power: where does it come from? Who exercises it? I’m talking about political power, but also religious power.
Talk about religion and being Muslim…
I am not against religion, but rather the use of it to control people. I believe in freedom, that everyone chooses their religion and their way of life without anyone having more power than the law or the constitution. At the time I wrote the book there was a great rise of Islamist groups, which came to power with Mohamed Morsi. I was attentive to this conflict between Islamists and the military, which at the end of the game the latter won. I am also concerned that my society is becoming more conservative, which can be seen even in the way I dress. Women wear headscarves more today than 40 years ago, they speak with a much more religious language… I want to understand this change and know where it comes from.
Any ideas?
I think that in the Arab world, and also in Europe, there is a shift to the right. In the Arab world, people play it safe, and the safest thing is religion, which gives us all the answers. Many factors influence. For example, education, because public schools are of poorer quality, but there are also reasons for those who interpret the world to do so in a more religious than scientific or philosophical way, such as the influence, since the 90s, of the countries of the Gulf and Saudi Arabia. Many Egyptians have worked there and when they return they do so with certain ideas. They also emerge from the interior of the country, with the spread of Islamist groups through towns and villages. Poverty has a lot of influence, because if the State does not offer a hospital and an Islamist group does, or Islamic banks grant interest-free loans, they become more influential. This started with Mubarak, whose governments were so corrupt that they did nothing for the citizens. So the Islamist groups carried out what the Government should have done and little by little they gained the trust of the people, who began to imitate them with the scarf, talking about the Koran all day long and being more conservative. I insist that I am not against people doing this and being religious, but I see religion as something personal. If you want to pray, fine, but if you preach prayer, don’t say that those who don’t do it should receive punishment. That’s totally different. If people help in Ramadan and are happy, great, and if others are going to the club, let them go. This is the social and political context that drives me, but I also consider myself an experimental and aesthetically focused writer. I am very interested in renewing Arabic prose or the novel in general. I look for a new language in technique.
Are you interested in technique?
I am very interested in form, technique, style… That is what fulfills me, because writing an aesthetic and experimental novel in its form captivates me. It is my literary ambition.
They present him as a representative of a new Egyptian novel.
I don’t consider myself a representative of anything. Each author represents himself. But in criticism the idea of the “new Egyptian novel” or the “novel of the new millennium” has emerged. It is a different novel from the one made by the generation of the 60s, composed by writers of great stature. The difference has to do with using fantastic elements in the work, moving reality away a little to build a different world or expressing this through metaphors instead of doing so directly. In prose, the concern for language is greater. Before, language was just a means of communication, but now there is greater interest in thinking about it to renew it. For example, if I have a protagonist who is delusional, perhaps the language should be delusional. If we are recounting a massacre or a disaster, language cannot be neutral. But in addition to this, there is a return to the traditional Arab heritage. For example, elements of Arabian Nights or one of his stories is taken, but worked in a contemporary way. The historical novel has also resurfaced, in this case to question it. Another way of narrating is sought through archives, newspapers, etc. It is a, let’s say, postmodern form that deviates from the official version. Because truth is relative and the fact of the existence of various points of view is fundamental.
He talks about differentiating history with a lower case letter and a capital letter.
Yes. History with a small letter is a story and with a capital letter it is what is transmitted in school as truth. I am against that single truth, because there are always different perspectives. If you ask ten Egyptians about the January 25 revolution, they will give you ten versions. If you were with Mubarak you have one version, if you were against you you have another, if you were against Mubarak and against the revolution you have a different one… Some say that the revolutionaries were sellouts who received money from foreign countries, and others that they were free young people who left against the dictatorship to build a modern and democratic country. There are also those on the couch, people who don’t care about anything as long as they can watch their series on TV. They will tell you something else. That is, less than 15 years have passed and there are many versions. Perhaps in 2080 only the official version will remain, which is the one that is being taught to children in school, and the revolution of the people who lost their relatives and brothers because they wanted a modern and democratic country will remain as an oral story. The power is saying that it was a revolution caused from outside against a stable country and that it was convenient for Israel and the US, while the young people were puppets who pretended I don’t know what… That will be the official version. That is why we should not think that the truth is in the history that those who have triumphed have written. The truth is on the riverbank and we have to look at what happened five hundred or a thousand years ago.
