Le Mont Emeraude de Mansoura Ez-Eldin

Elodie Kempenaer

13 Mai 2017

auteur : Mansoura Ez-Eldin
édition : Actes Sud
sortie : janvier 2017
genre : roman

Dans un Caire encore marqué par la révolution, Bustân al-Bahr cherche à ressusciter la princesse Zomorroda du mont Qâf. Son histoire s’est perdue, au fil du temps, dans les Mille et une Nuits, de conteurs en conteurs, la princesse du mont Qâf a été déformée puis finalement oubliée de presque tous. Il reste les descendants du mont Émeraude, qui cherchent à retrouver leur patrie d’avant. Dans sa recherche, Bûstan entrelace les histoires et emporte avec elle la jeune Hadir dont le destin est étroitement lié à celui de la princesse.

Le Mont Emeraude (le mont Qâf) mêle très joliment une narration enchâssée et en miroir à une narration très contemporaine. Tout et tous se font écho et l’histoire se déroule devant nos yeux comme une rivière à méandres qui aurait le pouvoir de remonter son court pour dévier et revenir d’où elle était partie. Bustân est la Shéhérazade moderne qui tient entre ses mains les personnages et qui en est en même temps dépendante. Esclave d’une légende, d’un mythe qu’elle doit faire renaître.

A qui aime la culture arabe, à qui aime les contes et merveilles, à qui aime des personnages mystérieux, puissants, à qui aime voir se mêler le réel d’une révolution arabe et l’enchantement d’une montagne d’émeraude ou d’une terre des fées, ce livre est le livre idéal.

Dans la mystique musulmane, et dans bien d’autres, le motif de la montagne est un motif récurrent censé représenter l’élévation spirituelle, souvent aussi lieu de révélations mystiques. Le mont Qâf est la montagne sacrée, l’axe du monde mais aussi son centre, son origine sacrée, le point d’accomplissement de chaque personnage de ce récit.

D’une écriture simple, Mansoura Ez-Eldin nous transporte dans un monde magique et tragique où se mêlent la beauté des pierres précieuses et celle de vies brisées par une soif d’absolu. Et alors que tout s’écroule et que la boucle semble bouclée, l’histoire se retourne sur elle-même et elle nous laisse avec autant de questions que nous avions au début.

Le Suricate

À la recherche de la nuit perdue

Par Katia Ghosn

Jabal al-Zumurreud (2014, Dar al-Tanwir) de l’auteure égyptienne Mansoura Ez-Eldine, qui a remporté le prix du roman du Salon du livre de Sharja, paraît dans sa traduction française, Le Mont Émeraude (2017), chez Actes Sud-Sindbad. L’auteure, diplômée de la faculté de journalisme de l’Université du Caire, est chroniqueuse littéraire à l’hebdomadaire Akhbar al-adab. Elle publie deux recueils de nouvelles : Ḍaw’ muhtazz (2001, Lumière tremblante) et Naḥwa-l junūn (2013, Vers la folie). S’ensuivent deux roman, Matāhat Maryam (2004, Le Dédale de Maryam), traduit en anglais par les éditions de l’Université américaine du Caire et Warā’a-l firdaws (2009, Au-delà du paradis). Ce dernier fut sélectionné sur la liste courte de l’édition 2010 du prix Booker arabe. Le Mont Émeraude déroule les fils de deux quêtes initiatiques, celle de Bustān al-baḥr déterminée à restituer la forme originelle du conte de Zumurruda (émeraude) dont on trouve la trace dans les Mille et une nuits et qui serait le conte préféré de Schéhérazade, et celle de Hadīr, une jeune Égyptienne qui vit aujourd’hui au Caire, dont la vie se transformera en destin à la suite de la perte d’une émeraude durant l’enfance. À travers le récit en miroir des deux personnages, les temporalités et les lieux s’imbriquent et l’imaginaire collectif ne laisse pas de se répercuter sur les représentations individuelles : « Nous ne sommes pas d’aujourd’hui, ni d’hier ; nous sommes d’un âge immense », comme dirait Jung.

Comment l’histoire de Zumurruda est-elle née ? 

L’histoire de Zumurruda, fille de Nursīn et du roi Yāqūt, est le fruit de mon imagination. Le point de départ est ma fascination pour le mont Qāf, cette montagne mythique encerclant la terre, évoquée dans une exégèse du Coran référée au théologien andalou Al-Qurṭubī (1214-1273) et dans le conte de Hasīb Karīm al-Dīn des Mille et une nuits. Dans mon roman, j’ai voulu mêler l’élément magique à la réalité contemporaine. J’ai voulu également creuser le rapport paradoxal de l’original ou l’authentique avec ses multiples copies ainsi que les rapports de l’oral et de l’écrit. 

Pourquoi ce retour aux Mille et une nuits ? 

Ma relation aux Nuits a commencé bien avant que je ne connaisse l’existence de cette œuvre qui fait partie de notre imaginaire populaire. Plus tard durant mes études universitaires, je l’ai lue et étudiée. C’est alors que j’ai découvert que beaucoup d’histoires racontées par les adultes ainsi que nombre de séries télévisées avaient leur source dans les Nuits. Mais ma recherche approfondie sur les Mille et une nuits a coïncidé avec l’écriture de ce roman. Le début de ce projet coïncide également avec les événements qui ont secoué l’Égypte en 2011 et 2012. J’étais déprimée et affectée par la tournure que prenaient les événements, la mort qui fauchait les gens par centaines. Un sentiment d’impuissance s’est emparé de moi et je me suis réfugiée dans l’écriture. Je me suis plongée dans les Mille et une nuits de façon quasi inconsciente, comme si le récit pouvait, à la manière de Schéhérazade, nous sauver de la mort. Ce retour a rétabli ma confiance dans le pouvoir des mots et de la parole après que l’impact inouï de violence m’en eut fait douter.

Les légendes et les archétypes, de la même façon qu’ils transforment l’existence individuelle en destin, déterminent-ils votre écriture ?

Je crois profondément que les légendes et les mythes collectifs marquent de façon indéniable la psyché humaine. Cette influence ne constitue pas pour autant une fatalité insurmontable. À travers ses actes et ses choix, l’homme peut influer sur son propre destin. En plus d’être imprégnés par les archétypes populaires, mes écrits sont intimement liés à mes rêves et cauchemars. Le réel est lui-même surréel ; en tenir compte est une source de créativité.

Comment expliquer la réception des Mille et une nuits par la littérature contemporaine ?

La puissance de l’imaginaire évoqué par les Nuits, la richesse inépuisable de ses thématiques ainsi que le fait d’être au confluent de plusieurs cultures rendent les contes toujours fascinants. C’est une œuvre ouverte à l’infini : on y revient toujours, avec le même plaisir et la même curiosité parce qu’aucune interprétation n’en épuise la richesse. On ne se lasse pas du style narratif des Nuits qui est une véritable merveille orientée vers l’exubérance et le plaisir, tant du côté des narrateurs que de celui des lecteurs. Sans sous-estimer les superbes constructions formelles appréciées des érudits ou la profonde sagesse qui est contenue dans les Nuits, il n’en demeure pas moins pour moi, que le secret de leur beauté réside surtout dans leur style narratif inégalé. 

Vous dites que c’est un des livres les moins compris…

Les Nuits ne se résument pas à quelques schémas figés ; les récits exigent des lectures multiples et renouvelées. Prenons, par exemple, la représentation de la femme qui y est véhiculée. Souvent associée à des traits négatifs ou maléfiques, elle est aussi le symbole de la sagesse et de l’intelligence. De même, la relation entre Schéhérazade et Shahrayār n’est pas réductible à un rapport de pouvoir entre les sexes ; c’est aussi la manifestation des liens complexes entre l’intellectuel et l’autorité. L’idée sous-tendue par toutes les Nuits se résume à mon sens à celle-ci : la libération par la connaissance. 

Le roman abandonne-t-il, à la fin, la recherche originelle du conte ?

La narratrice cherchait moins à retrouver le texte originel du conte qu’à surtout détecter et explorer les ajouts et les déformations que conteurs et copistes avaient introduits au fil du temps ; sa quête consiste à combler les lacunes du récit afin de le ressusciter. En voulant s’acquitter de cette mission, la narratrice fait revivre la puissance magique des mots, questionne l’étrange et le merveilleux et se pose en légitime concurrente de Schéhérazade.

Quelles influences traversent votre écriture ? 

Il est difficile de dégager des influences bien déterminées. Je crois que l’héritage religieux et métaphysique a participé à ma formation ainsi que la culture populaire en Égypte. J’ai passé mon enfance, dans les années 80, dans un village de la région du Delta où les histoires des fantômes et des djinns qui hantent le Nil ne sont pas considérées comme des événements merveilleux mais comme des éléments de la vie quotidienne. Les histoires les plus étranges sont ordinaires et ne suscitent pas d’interrogations. La coexistence de ces deux mondes n’a rien de contradictoire. J’ai aussi une dette littéraire envers des auteurs comme Borges, Carlos Fuentes, Julio Cortázar, Italo Calvino, ou à Farid-al dīn al-‘Aṭṭār ou Al-Mutanabbī. Il me plaît d’ailleurs d’imaginer que l’ombre d’Abū al-‘Alā’ al-Ma‘arrī plane d’une certaine façon sur le Mont Émeraude.

L'Orient Literaire

Narrative as Resurrection and Memory as Eternity!

Mahmoud Abdelshakour*

The “Emerald Mountain” by Mansoura Ez Eldin represents a huge leap in the author’s path. She is a special voice among the most outstanding voices in the art of narration. While “Maryam’s Maze” and “Beyond Paradise” were more about the inner world of the psyche, with the heroines settling accounts with the mysteries of the heart and the wounds of the past, Emerald Mountain not just opens up to the magical worlds of Thousand and One Night or its unbound fantasies. The novel carries the heroines from their narrow environment, small memories, and limited mazes to philosophical, existential and Sufi ideas as big as the universe and kingdoms. Even the central ideas in the amazing and complex novel (despite its simple narrative appearance) as the flying, leaving, deserting and the parallel worlds transcending time, makes this a deeply intense experience, unprecedented in Mansoura Ez Eldin’s former work. It is more than the lure to be inspired by a modern Thousand and One Night. It is a very ambitious attempt to pose questions on the meaning of art, the ability to tell about resurrection, to exceed the story to the meaning of its signs and symbols. Narrating here almost turns into an incantation for resurrection, a formula through which the heroines discover themselves then the world. The Emerald Mountain could be considered a huge metaphor not only for the collection of the fragments of Princess Zomorroda’s story; it is also a metaphor for the collection process of the foreseeing heroines that transcends their trivial worries. The novel is in fact not more than an attempt to look from above like a majestic mountain for a clearer and deeper picture into the human experience as a whole.  

This does not mean that the Emerald Mountain is a break with Mansoura’s former works. The world of dreams, madness and suicide represent an escape and emancipation from reality. The characters are still tied in mysterious ropes of fate. However one might say that escape in the Emerald Mountain is towards the outside not the inside even if in this flight there is a more complex maze that leads to alienation as that the dwellers of the Mountain Qaf suffer from. At the heart of the meaning in the novel is the idea of resurrection with all its variations, and this sufi believe in the ability to reach your destination, and this idea of religious-mythology that gives the word ability to resurrect, recreate and transform (in the beginning was the word) as if the human being takes some of the ability of the creator. This might be one of the greater philosophical meanings of Thousand and One Night that can say that it did not just invent its world but also invented its super human being, who transcends time, place and its limited reality. This might be the secret of its continuance and eternity. Reality belies the virtually indefinite human ability and death defeats man by the most insignificant germ. Yet art and imagination, and nothing else, are weapons of human beings in this eternal ongoing resurrection. Man is the phoenix in Thousand and One Night. His imagination is the invaluable emerald mountain that can return and take a new shape. The word is the magnetic mountain that attracts meanings and makes stories of it that never die.

Mansoura has grasped the essence of Thousand and One Night, its significance as an artistic amulet against death. The Emerald Mountain is dashing towards amazing horizons with a degree of maturity and mastery that is truly impressive. I realized that the reasoning of the “Arabian Nights” (or might it be the law of art too) is to break traditional reasoning. It is a reference to imagination that does not only reconstruct the broken pieces in one complete solid piece but reforms the shape of time like clay. In Emerald Mountain, Mansoura preserves the magical and fantastic world of Thousand and One Night, with its absolute richness in the art of narration that has become at the hand of Shahrazad the equivalence to life. (story-telling saved the life of Scheherazade, as it saved the customs and traditions and the dreams of all peoples of the world). You may even consider the modern-day priestess of white and black called Bustan al Bahr who came from the Mountain Deylam with a sacred mission to bring Princess Zomorroda back to life, the all-knowing heroine who holds the rudder of narration and story-telling in the time of the emerald mountain and in our present time, is a modern Shahrazad. Not only is she not satisfied with the retelling of a lost story from the book of Thousand and One Night and removing any distortion from it, but also she projects present day questions on the story, she almost see in the art, imagination and narration, the salvage from the frustration of crazy and loud cities.

In former times, Zomorrods said: “The tale will bring me back and the priestess of white and black will recollect my fragments.” So Bustan el Bahr decides to devote herself for the resurrection of the princess of the Emerald Mountain, Mountain Qaf where wisdom leads to understanding the self and the world. In her search, she seeks help of ancient scripts with signs and codes. Her journey brings her to Cairo where she meets Hadeer, the rebellious Egyptian girl in the loud riotous and lost city, the daughter of Nadia, a beautiful lady, who’s image smiles at her in the mirrors. Hadeer is a girl of her times. One day as she was a child she lost her mother’s ring with an emerald stone. Bustan el Bahr and her Iranian colleague Karim Khan are the grandchildren of the monks and the elders of the Emerald Mountain who went into the maze and diaspora after a curse that shook the Mountain and destroyed it, Now it is impossible to bring the Emerald Mountain back without the help of the two grandchildren, or without the modern Zomorroda who does not realize that she is part of an incantation for resurrection. Mansoura draws silk lines between the heroines of a bygone myth and the heroines of the present day. She removes the barriers between the real and the mythical with captivating brilliance. Bustan el Bahr effortlessly tells the story between the magnet mountain and the land of the fairies in the mythical past. Between Shiraz, Cairo, Toronto, Innsbruck, Zacatecas, and South Shields of today, it is the imagination that brings down the walls between the characters and cities. It closes the gaps, it makes the present able to resurrect the past. This is Mansoura’s greatest achievement: through the story she proves that man of today cannot escape his mythical past. He cannot ignore the signals, signs and fate. Without imagination his only destiny may be madness (like the madman of the Manial district with the green eyes who strangles himself and like the man who stands screaming in his apartment window on Tahrir Street while passersby are bewildered). The journey not only led to bringing back the Princess Zomorroda, her resurrection and return to the Book of Arabian Nights without distortion but to the hovering of modern Hadeer/Zomorroda literally above our narrow world. Hadeer becomes like a lighthouse, a feathered woman in the Book of Arabian Nights. She discovers, and we with her, that man and his questions and his worries are the same whether in the Emerald Mountain, in Cairo or in Canada: his ceaseless dream of eternity, his search that never ends for the lost paradise (a capital like Stockholm, or a mountain of emerald emerges as a vision for a jeweller with called Blouqia, or a city who knows the night as in the dream of Ilya the seeker for magic of another kind). The strength of the “Emerald Mountain” lies in that the heroines, mythical and realistic, dead and alive in one basket, woven of the dream and fantasy, philosophy and Sufism. The novel has become like many mirrors that we see on its pages in the past and present. Like a lake of liquid silver where the characters do not see only themselves; they see their past, present and their future too.

The novel continues to be tied by two fine strings in the form of two questions that are related to art as much as they are related to philosophy: Should the Qaf Mountain dwellers and the Princess Zomorroda content themselves with staying isolated on their land under the watch of the faithful serpent that carries out the inevitable destiny that cannot be escaped. Or had the venture to be taken even if the price is death and resurrection as a phoenix? The second string/question is: Is writing the grave of words and the curse that leads to lying and distortion or is it also a depository for the memory, an incantation, without which knowledge would not be safeguarded? Mansoura’s answer to the first question is completely biased towards the search for the absolute by exiting and venturing, even a sufi belief that one can reach through signs and through abandoning, rising, flying and spiritual effort. Venturing has its price, overstepping boundaries has a tax, but the experience is worth it. Maybe for man to turn himself into a mountain to see from above his own self, instead of being just a lonely mountain dweller.

In Mansoura’s answer to the second question she favours the Plato’s vision in “Phaedrus Dialogue”. He saw a distortion in writing, consistent with his philosophy that is based on the original and the image, the substance and the fake shadow. The elders of Mountain Qaf were in fact inclined towards writing the “history” of Princess Zomorroda without falsification and not towards artistic “writing” about her original story. So Mansoura completely took their side declaring war on the falsification that was done to the story. Our extremely talented author did not realize that she has to side with art and not history. History is interested in the truth and what really happened, while art in its essence is nothing but the distortion of reality and history because it goes through self. Selves even add to it. The best example is Thousand and One Night that has gained its mythical richness from these colourful added touches that made it rainbow-like. Even The Emerald Mountain is in truth nothing but a creative distortion as past, present and Arabian Nights came out of the heart of talented writer’s vision. Thus the problem is not with writing and documenting as oral texts might be affected by distortion. The problem is when distortion by adding the self and imagination is lost, Art itself is lost. Plato’s vision befits a strict and rational structure, and not one of art and imagination that works according to totally different rules.  

This is my only observation on a great novel that does not waive to be artistically pleasing, that doesn’t lose its idea and that glues the reader to it. Emerald Mountain does not omit big human questions. The Emerald Mountain’s place is in your mind, dream and aspiration to make what is beyond ability come true. The king is not Yaqut “the king of Emerald Mountain”; it is your imagination, believe and ability to venture and yet believe in destiny. The phoenix is nothing but a human being who dies and comes back to life through recollection and the memory of the grandchildren. As for the myths and stories, they are only but mirrors and lakes of liquid silver in which we see our past, our present and our desires and maybe our future. Is there a greater magic than to say all this in one novel?

*Egyptian writer and critic

“Al Ketaba” electronic site

June 9, 2014

Translated from Arabic by: Isis Qassem

The Rumpus interview with Mansoura Ez Eldin

By: Pauls Toutonghi

T-shirts, hats, mugs, flags, wristbands, posters, stickers, mock license plates: When I was in Cairo in March, almost every street corner seemed to offer a vendor selling January 25 Revolution souvenirs. And this commercialization was endemic. Located on Tahrir Square, the Ramses Hilton was, for much of early 2011, offering (at an elevated price) rooms with a “demonstration view.”

But is commercialization the enemy of deep remembrance? How does Egypt preserve and consecrate the memory of its revolution—the single biggest peaceful revolution of this young century—in a vital and living way?

The answer is—in large part—through words.

In today’s Arab world, novelists and intellectuals of all kinds have been at the forefront of the preservation of public memory. Suddenly there’s a huge appetite, worldwide, for Egyptian writing—writing which was neglected for much of the latter half of the twentieth century. Organizations like The Hay Festival and Shubbak (the Mayor of London’s Arab Culture Festival) have structured their programming around the voices of young Arab writers, artists and bloggers. Al-Jazeera is routinely interviewing novelists and essayists and poets to get their opinions on political questions—interviews which only sometimes touch on the artist’s work, itself. The age of the Middle Eastern writer as international public figure has roared into being.

Mansoura Ez Eldin is one of the most respected individuals in this environment. Her first novel, Maryam’s Maze, was intimately concerned with questions of genealogy, history, public memory, and madness. The book was widely-reviewed and almost universally praised. It was published, in translation, by American University of Cairo Press in 2004.

Maryam’s Maze concerns a central character, Maryam, and her attempt to negotiate an urban landscape that has suddenly lost all sense. It reads like a prescient and deeply wise document, seven years after its publication in English. The writing, which is spare and evocative, seems to suggest—through metaphor—any number of contemporary political conditions. “It’s a life of glass,” the narrative voice asserts, “a brittle life that can be smashed at any moment…” And the uprisings of early 2011 throughout the Middle East spring immediately to mind.

Ez Eldin’s second novel, Beyond Paradise, was shortlisted for the 2010 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF). Her work is forthcoming in Granta’s much-anticipated The Granta Book of the African Short Story. She replied to these questions from Cairo—even as the city was shaken by ongoing unrest and political violence.

The Rumpus: In Maryam’s Maze, you open with a scene wherein the protagonist, Maryam, seems to split into two beings: both herself and a ghost. Why did you choose a ghost?

Mansoura Ez Eldin: Is Maryam dead? Is she dreaming? Or just losing her mind? I don’t like to explain my work—or to suggest a singular interpretation for it. In the writing process, I try to leave some clues that might help the reader draw his own conclusions. Some readers believed that Maryam was a ghost, others thought that she was schizophrenic—or perhaps on the verge of insanity.

I was happy with this ambiguity because I sincerely wanted my readers to make up their own minds; I wanted to avoid a more obvious and imposed meaning. I love to take risks, to play with the reader and provoke him.

The novel was inspired by the Muslim notion of the ‘double’ or the Pharaonic ‘ka/ba’ concept of being. In Islamic culture, the ‘double’ is known as ‘Al Qarin’ or ‘the spirit companion.’ There’s a strong belief that everyone has a double, or Qarin, who is invisible.

In Islamic culture, the Qarin is supposed to be a bad spirit—but you can’t find more information about him. For example, you can’t know what happens to him after death. Or [whether] there [are] male and female Qarins or not. So, I tried to imagine the Qarin in a different way—as Maryam’s double who wants to steal her life—to steal her body and her memories. But I didn’t mention the word “Qarin” in the novel to let the reader think freely and imagine whatever he wants, according to his own culture.

The Qarin concept can be a sort of metaphysical interpretation of schizophrenia. Let’s say that the metaphysical sides of religions—and the rich oral Islamic and Egyptian heritage—are a main source of inspiration to me.

The real challenge is, I think, in finding ways to understand that wonderful heritage, to use it to interpret the world we live in. How do we tie—meaningfully—that heritage into the real life problems from which we suffer while awake?

That is what I am trying to do.

In Maryam’s Maze, for example, there is a strong tie with the techniques and the world of The Arabian Nights, but the protagonist is a young woman moving through Cairo in the beginning of the third millennium.

Rumpus: When the novel was released, you said, in an interview: “Arab readers aren’t used to this style from an Arab writer– especially from a woman. I felt like I’d committed a crime.” Can you elaborate on that idea a little?

Ez Eldin: In the writing process I didn’t think of the reader at all—so I wrote freely and without any burdens. But after finishing the novel I was uncomfortable and anxious, because I felt that the novel might come across as an enigmatic and mysterious book—and readers may consider it a real labyrinth.

Egyptian writers with few exceptions are quite loyal to realism, and don’t appreciate fantasy or horror or detective novels, as much. And, as a woman writer, readers expect you to write about specific themes in a direct way.

They don’t expect an avant-garde or an experimental Gothic piece from you—or at least this was what I thought then. So, I was prepared for indifference, but much to my surprise the novel was extremely well received by readers and critics.

Rumpus: Your second novel, Beyond Paradise, was shortlisted for the 2010 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Over the past few years, the IPAF has quickly become the most prestigious award given to fiction written in Arabic. And yet—work on the IPAF short list is still slow to make the leap into English, especially in America. I was wondering what the status was of the translation of your second novel. Will it be issued in English soon? Why do you think that Arab writers are not as widely read, across the Atlantic?

Ez Eldin: The IPAF is the only Arabic prize that increases readership. Beyond Paradise became a bestseller in many Arab countries after being shortlisted for the IPAF. The German edition will be out next week by UnionsVerlag, the Italian edition is supposed to be out next August by Piemme Mondadori, and the Dutch edition will be out next February by MM Boeken. As for the English language, my agent will begin submitting the novel to American publishers next October.

I can’t tell why Arab writers are not widely read in America. The American publishing market seems to be really tough—especially for foreign literature. On the other hand, most of the Arab writers don’t have agents and Arabic publishers in general are not professional enough, and don’t work on promoting their publications outside the Arab world. Also, there are no official organizations that support the translation of Arabic Literature.

Part of the problem is that the translated Arabic works are not necessarily the best of the Arabic literature. Sometimes western publishers and readers search for specific themes from Arab writers—as if our literature was just a social or a political text, and not art.

Rumpus: The corollary to that question, then, is this one: Books take years to write. They take even more years to copy-edit, assemble cover art, print, publicize, etc. How can they have relevance in our contemporary world—where everything seems to happen so quickly?

Ez Eldin: Believe it or not, I’m always thinking about the contrast between books and the quickness of our modern world. I reckon this contrast is the reason behind the importance of books in our life.

In a highly rapid world we need to take a breath through reading. Reading in this case becomes a sort of meditation or yoga. However, when I associate books with slowness, I don’t only mean the long time we need to produce a book—I particularly mean that books, especially novels, look like a slower version of our real world.

Writing is a sort of capturing of a special moment or period of time and then, that moment’s deconstruction. Then, the moment is restructured, rebuilt—in the search for more understanding. By writing and reading we praise slowness and creativity.

Rumpus: In The New York Times, on January 30, 2011, you wrote an op-ed piece that concluded: “Silence is a crime. Even if the regime continues to bombard us with bullets and tear gas, continues to block Internet access and cut off our mobile phones, we will find ways to get our voices across to the world, to demand freedom and justice.” This was obviously written two weeks—roughly—before Mubarak’s resignation. The regime fell—but has the progress been as extensive as you would have hoped? Have the demands for freedom and justice been met, in your opinion?

Ez Eldin: Our revolution is still unfinished!

Obliging Mubarak to resign was the first and the easiest part of the revolution! Our demands for freedom and justice have not been met yet.

Two days ago (Tuesday 28 June) there were clashes in Tahrir Square between the families of the martyrs and the brutal police force—there was tear gas and rubber bullets as if Mubarak’s regime didn’t fall.

This is a sad thing for sure, but at least, we’ll resume our revolution and will be back to Tahrir Square and other squares.

I’m full of hope that we can face all this violence in a peaceful and civilized manner, as we did before. Too much has happened beginning from 25 January until now. There is no way back to the past. The spirit of the revolution cannot be conjured back into the bottle.

As a friend of mine put it: Now we have a treasure, we have the memory of a unique and victorious revolution—which will keep up the people’s courage. Against all odds, I’m pretty optimistic concerning the future of Egypt.

Rumpus: In America, fiction writers struggle for relevance. There is no substantial fear of persecution—based on the things you publish. How much does this impact the work of a fiction writer—the fear that the work could be ammunition for some kind of campaign against you?

Ez Eldin: In countries in which a writer can pay dearly—maybe with his own life—because of his thoughts, words acquire an additional importance, and writing, as an idea and a practice, resembles walking blindfolded in a mine field.

The best thing you can do in this case while writing is to ignore everything outside your work. As a writer you should practice killing your internal censor—practice forgetting about potential readers.

As a matter of fact, the censorship issue in Egypt is really complicated. On one hand, there’s no pre-publishing censorship in Egypt. But on the other hand, there are many sorts of more dangerous, covert censorship. That is, there are many gate keepers who function as covert censors.

The daring independent and small publishers—like Merit Publishing House—were the lungs that helped Egyptian literature to stay alive, vital, and daring. The works of new Egyptian writers are really daring on all levels.

Rumpus: What are you working on, now?

Ez Eldin: I’ve just finished a new collection of short stories entitled, The Path to Madness, that will be out in Arabic within two months.

A story of this collection will be included in The Granta Book of the African Short Story, edited by the Nigerian writer Helon Habila.

I’m also in the middle of writing a new novel entitled, The Mountain of Life.

The interview was published in the Rumpus Website.. July 12th, 2011.