Die Stadt der Gespenster

            von: Mansoura Ez-eldin (Mansura Essedin)

                       

(Ausschnitt aus dem Roman: "Die Odyssee von Meriam")

Übersetzung: Magdi Gohary, Christine v.dem Knesebeck

Wie im Halbschlaf läuft Meriam durch die Strassen der Stadt. Sie weiß nicht mehr, ob die Welt um sie her wirklich ist oder nicht. Alles scheint weit entfernt und tief in ihrem Inneren verborgen zu sein. Die Menschen, die Teil ihres Lebens waren, haben sich in Geister verwandelt, die sie von Zeit zu Zeit besuchen und sie dann plötzlich, ohne jegliches Mitgefühl, im Zustand der Verzweiflung und Verwirrtheit zu verlassen.

Wie abwesend läuft Meriam weiter. Sie zieht ihre Kleider enger um ihren Körper. Fest tritt sie mit den Füssen auf das Pflaster. Sie zwingt sich irgendwelche sinnlosen Worte auszusprechen, um sich selbst davon zu überzeugen, dass sie noch existiert, dass sie auf der Welt ist, einer Welt, die sie vom ersten Augenblick an ausgestoßen hat.

Sie war ein krankes Kind, dem Tod näher als dem Leben. Ihr Magen spie alles, was hinein kam, durch ständiges Erbrechen oder Durchfall wieder aus. Nerges musste ihr dann eine große Dosis Glucose verabreichen um zu verhindern, dass das Leben aus ihren Körper entwich.

Neulich hat Meriam diese Flüssigkeit auf ihrer Zunge geschmeckt, jedes Mal, wenn sie ein Getränk oder eine Speise zu sich genommen hatte. So als ob sie ihr ganzes Leben nichts anderes geschmeckt hätte. Ein Leben, das in Splitter zerfallen war, die nicht zusammenpassen wollten. Ein Leben, das nur diesen durchdringenden Geschmack zurückließ.

Sie hatte es sich ausgesucht, alleine ohne alle Bekannte leben zu wollen. Aber ist sie wirklich diejenige, die sich für diesen Weg entschieden hat?! Kann eine Familie wie die ihrige die Tochter alleine leben lassen, ohne nach ihr zu fragen oder sie zu besuchen? Wo ist diese Familie überhaupt? Und warum fand Meriam, während sie den Ort besuchte, der doch der ihre sein sollte, keine Spur dieser Familie? Niemand dort erkannte sie und sie erkannte ebenfalls niemanden. Sie ging wie ein Geist… leichtfüßig, schwebend, getragen von dem leichtem Wind, der dort immer weht.

Sie suchte jeden Zoll des Dorfes vergeblich nach Nimr, Nerges, Kausar und Saleh ab, nach den Spuren von Josef und Sofia. Die Villa der Familie El Tagi existierte nicht mehr. Der Friedhof, den sie gut kannte und auf dem, wie sie dachte, ihre Lieben begraben lägen, schien nicht der gleiche zu sein. Alles schien das schreckeinflößende Gegenteil von dem, was sie von früher erinnerte. Meriam fühlte sich mit dem Nichts konfrontiert... ein neuer Adam, der ins stürmische Meer ging nachdem Gott ihn verlassen hatte.

Sie setzte sich zwischen zwei Reihen von Gräbern, lehnte sich mit dem Rücken an eines, zündete sich mit zittrigen Händen eine Zigarette an und begann zu rauchen. Vielleicht würde sie sich so ein wenig beruhigen.

Der Duft von Pfefferminze und Basilikum erinnerte sie an Sofia. Wider Willen musste sie lächeln, als sie in ihrer Phantasie Sofia laufen sah, mit ihren schmutzigen Papieren* und mit Zweigen von Basilikum und Pfefferminze in den Händen, begleitet vom Geräusch ihrer Schritte und dem eindringlichen Geruch des klebrigen Kakteensafts, der ihre Hände und Kleider beschmutzt. Wo ist sie jetzt? Liegt sie in ihrem dunklen Loch oder hat sie ein anderes Grab gefunden, vor dem sie der Schlaf überkam? Oder läuft sie jetzt auf Wegen voller Abfall, auf denen sie schmutzige Papiere aufheben kann und keiner daran Anstoß nimmt? Dort wo nichts und niemand ist, das würde zu ihr passen.

Meriam ist sich sicher, dass sich alles, worauf sie sich stützt, in Nichts auflöst. Was sie aber nicht mehr weiß, ist: Wer sind sie, die sie überallhin verfolgen und sie auffordern zurückzukehren, sich ihnen anzuschließen...und sie anzuerkennen. Sie wünschte sich, sie würde einen langen Alptraum haben. Er sollte damit enden, dass sie in einem warmen Bett aufwachte und ihren Angehörigen die verwirrenden Einzelheiten ihres Traums erzählte.

Yehia tauchte in ihren Gedanken auf. Sie bat ihn darum, sie nicht mit den erbarmungslosen Fragen allein zu lassen. Er soll zurückkommen und ihr Beistand leisten. Sie wusste aber, dass er auf Seite der anderen steht, gegen sie. Sein Schicksal war mit dem Schicksal der anderen verbunden, ihre Existenz ist seine und ihr Verschwinden bedeutet, dass auch er niemals da war.

Sie stand eilig auf, schüttelte den Staub von ihrer Kleidung, richtete mit ihren Händen ihr Haar und lief langsam aus dem Ort hinaus.

* * *

Die Gegenstände und die Erinnerungen, die weit weg sind, verschwinden nicht wirklich, sondern dringen in uns ein, werden von unserem Blut aufgenommen und verschmelzen so mit unseren Zellen, dass sie uns täuschen. Sie spiegeln uns vor, dass das Erinnerungsvermögen sie vollständig gelöscht hätte. Plötzlich dann werden wir von ihnen überrascht, wenn sie wie einzelne Splitter herausfallen. Die Erinnerungen erscheinen als einheitliches Ganzes ohne klare Einzelheiten... Ein Zustand, der uns traurig oder sehnsüchtig oder glücklich macht, ohne dass wir jemals an seine Quelle gelangen können. 

So kann der Duft von Pfefferminze und von Basilikum Sofia mit Haut und Haar zurück bringen, und eine Rauchwolke an Youssuf erinnern. Ein grimmiger Gesichtsausdruck lässt sofort die Züge von Nerges und ein Beerdigungszelt die friedliche Seele von Saleh auftauchen. Aber was wird Meriam hinterlassen, wenn ihr Ende gekommen ist? Was bleibt von ihr im Bewusstsein von höchstens zwei oder drei Menschen?

Meriam bewegt sich in einer Stadt aus Papier. Nur Gebäude und Strassen aus Karton, die darauf warten von etwas Gegenwind völlig weggefegt zu werden und die Ruine freizulegen, die in ihrem Wesen verborgen liegt.

Riesige Holzwürmer nagen an allem...raffinierte Holzwürmer, die sehr langsam am Herzen der Dinge nagen, damit sie von niemandem entdeckt werden.

Die Stadt ist in leichtes Dunkel gehüllt. Meriam bewegt sich darin ohne zu wissen, was um sie herum geschieht... Ihr Gehirn arbeitet schnell und chaotisch aber es ist unfähig zu begreifen. In diesem Augenblick war sie nicht nur mit dem Verschwinden von Yehia oder dem Schicksal von Radwi beschäftigt... Sie suchte nach dem, was tiefer darunter lag... Was trieb alle in den Wahnsinn. Ist Sofia erst wahnsinnig geworden und danach all diese Dinge? Oder ist der Wahnsinn der Ursprung und alles andere ist bloß ein Produkt der Phantasie?

Yehia hat sie in seine Welt geholt. Er hat sie von allem getrennt, mit dem sie sich verbunden gefühlt hatte. Er wollte ihre Seele erobern. Er brachte sie zu all dem, was sie als schweres Verbrechen ansah. Bei ihm hat sie keine Sekunde inne gehalten, um zu überlegen, was geschah... Sie hat nichts von der Wirklichkeit um sie her bemerkt. Wenn sie an ihre gemeinsame Beziehung denkt, fühlt sie sich, als ob sie sich beide in einer tödlichen Leere bewegt haben.

Am ersten Tag in seinem Haus hat sie sich wie eine Schlafwanderin bewegt. Vorsichtig berührte sie die Gegenstände, ging von der Küche in den Salon, dann in sein Arbeitszimmer, klopfte an die Möbel, während er sie verwundert beobachtete.

Das Gefühl, das sie beherrschte und von dem sie sich versucht hatte zu befreien, war aber der Geruch des Todes in Yehia selbst... Ein Geruch, der von ihm ausging, ihn umhüllte und ihn mit einer geheimnisvollen Aura umgab. In ihrem Leben mit ihm hatte sie den Tod in einer Weise eingeatmet, die sie nie verstanden hatte.

Alles, was sie heute mit einander verbindet, sind verschwommene, ungeordnete, von einander losgelöste Erinnerungen. Manchmal erinnert sie sich an viele Einzelheiten, die sich zu vollständigen klaren Szenen zusammenfügten. Was sie aber nie herausfand, war, ob diese Szenen und Ereignisse wirklich stattgefunden hatten oder nicht? Ihr Gedächtnis wird von Yehias kindlichem Lächeln und seinem klugen, beobachtenden Blick überschwemmt. Aber sie fragt sich erneut: Wenn es diesen Menschen gibt, wo ist er dann hingegangen?

Gestern in der Wohnung in Abdin, beim Stöbern in alten Unterlagen in der hölzernen Kiste von Sofia, fand sie die Heiratsurkunde des Ehepaares Meriam Youssuf El Tagi und Yehia Elgindi. Das Foto in der Urkunde hatte dieselben Merkmale, die ihr Gesicht jetzt hat: dunkler Teint, schulterlanges kohlschwarzes Haar und schwarze Augen. Weit entfernt von Meriam, wie sie sie kannte, mit ihrem braunen langen Haar, ihrer feinen Nase, ihrem honigfarbenen, versonnener Blick, den sie von Sofia geerbt hat. Das Foto von Yehia entsprach aber dem, woran sie sich erinnerte.

Was sie aber wirklich erstaunte, war die Existenz einer Heiratsurkunde überhaupt... Sie ist und war schon immer überzeugt, dass sie Yehia nicht geheiratet hatte und dass ein solches Dokument nicht existiert hatte.

Am Anfang ihrer Beziehung hatte sie davon geträumt, nackt in seinen Armen zu liegen. Er war ebenfalls nackt. Während er sie heftig umarmte, ging die Tür auf und Youssuf, Nerges, Kausar, Saleh, Zainab und fremde Kinder kamen herein und riefen ihren Namen. Sie schrie „Oh, meine Schande... Oh, meine Schande“. Sie wiederholte diese Worte verzweifelt und melodramatisch, während sie versuchte, sich zuzudecken  Meriam spürt, dass dieser Traum ihre Beziehung zu Yehia noch immer bestimmt und sie deutet.

Wenn sie mit ihm zusammen war, fühlte sie sich immer von jemandem beobachtet, der ihre verzweifelten Versuche, sich im Leben zu integrieren, verspottete. War er ein Redakteur dieser Zeitung? Warum fand sie dort keine Spur von ihm und wie hatte sie ihn dann getroffen?

Meriam kennt keine Antwort auf all diese Fragen. Sie muss in den Zustand der Verlorenheit hinnehmen und sich auf die einfachsten Dinge stützen, deren sie sich sicher ist.

Die Wohnung von Yehia war nicht groß...seine Räume waren geordnet, nichts dort war der Phantasie überlassen, es gab wenig freien Platz. Yehia war bemüht, die Räume mit Möbeln vollzustellen. Als ob diese Möbelstücke den Ort festzurren würden und ihn daran hinderten abzuheben und zu verschwinden. Die Wände waren voll mit Bildern und Fotos.

Manchmal hatte Meriam das Gefühl, als ob ein kleines Kind an ihrem gemeinsamen Leben teilgenommen hätte. Aber sie erinnerte von diesem Kind nur seine blonden Haare und seine honigfarbigen Augen. War das ihr Kind? Aber sie war nie schwanger oder hatte nie eine Geburt, das hätte sich in ihrem Innern eingegraben. Außerdem war an ihrem Körper keine Spur davon zu sehen.

Wer ist wohl dieses Kind? Gehörte es nur zu Yehia alleine? Meriam beschleicht das Gefühl, dass die Lösung dieses Lebensrätsels zuallererst in der Hand von Yehia liegt und weiter in der von Radwan. Und dass das plötzliche Verschwinden der beiden sie tötet... Gibt es einen Zusammenhang zwischen beiden?

Sie versuchte mehrmals vergeblich Yehias Haus zu finden. Ihres Wissens wohnte er in einer bestimmten Straße (auf der Nilinsel, Anm. d. Übers.) in Manial. Als sie in der Strasse aber in Richtung des Hauses ging, in der seine Wohnung sein sollte, fand sie zu ihrem Erstaunen ein anderes, ihr unbekanntes Gebäude vor, an dem sie niemals vorbei gegangen war. Sie überwand ihre Verwirrung und fragte den Türhüter nach der Wohnung von Yehia. Der Mann sah sie angewidert an, als ob sie etwas verbrochen hätte und verfluchte die leichten Mädchen. Kurz davor bewusstlos zu werden, schleppte sie sich von ihm weg.

Die Strassen verwandelten sich für sie in bösartige Wesen, die sich in einem furchterregenden, sich wiederholenden Spiel gegen sie verschworen. Das Spiel lief immer vollkommen gleich ab. Es glich einem großen Labyrinth, das von geschickter Hand angelegt war, damit Meriam sich in ihm verlief. Meriam vermied es, auf den Straßen dieser gespenstischen Stadt zu laufen, deren Licht spärlich war, woran auch die Laternen nichts ändern konnten.

Früher hatte Meriam die Straßen der Stadt in- und auswendig gewußt. Sie hatte es geliebt, in ihnen zu flanieren. Mit liebevollem Blick hatte sie den Staub auf den Häusern und den Bäumen und die Wolken von Abgasen angesehen. Sie hatte auch die Plätze der Bettler gekannt. Jetzt stand sie einer anderen höllischen Stadt gegenüber, die versuchte, Meriam das Leben zu rauben. Sie erkannte keinen der Einwohner, so als ob sie alle durch andere Wesen ersetzt worden wären, Wesen, die versuchten die Stadtbewohner zu imitieren, damit das Spiel nicht durchschaut würde und jeder in seinem eigenen Labyrinth gefangen blieb. Oder warum kennt Meriam jetzt keinen ihrer Lieblingsplätze mehr? Warum sind alle, die sie kannte, verschwunden und haben sie in dieser Leere zurückgelassen?

„Das problematische Weib“ so hat Yehia sie genannt. Wieso sind ihre Rollen jetzt vertauscht? Er hat sich in einen Menschen aus Quecksilber verwandelt, der zwischen ihren Finger zerrinnt. Er war davon überzeugt, sie würde ihn auf jeden Fall vernichten. Jetzt ist sie sich nicht mehr sicher, ob er es ernst meinte oder ob es nur Spaß war? Sie wiederum hatte in seiner Nähe den Eindruck, er bringe sie dem Tod näher. Einem sanften und freundlichen Tod, an den man sich gewöhnen könnte. Meriam hatte ihm gegenüber nie ein schlechtes Gewissen wegen dieses Gefühls. Es war von ihrem eigenen Willen nicht abhängig.

Der Todesgeruch, da täuschte sich Meriams Nase nicht, strömte aus seinem Körper, trotz seiner Lebendigkeit und seiner Lebensbejahung. Im Gegensatz zu Youssuf liebte Yehia das Leben und setzte sich mit ihm auseinander. Er versuchte auch Meriam mit allen Mitteln dahin zu bringen. Er wusste, dass sie aus einer Familie stammte, die aus Toten bestand. Tote, die nichts anderes waren als neblige Erinnerungen, hinter denen keine lebendigen Menschen zu vermuten sind und die sich in Vorspiegelungen verwandelten: in den Duft von Pfefferminze und Basilikum, in ein Beerdigungszelt, in einen  grimmigen Gesichtsausdruck und in Rauchwolken von Haschisch-Zigaretten.

Meriam versuchte den Tod philosophisch zu nehmen, aber sie fiel in seine geschickt aufgestellten Fallen. Sie redete sich ein, der Tod lebte in Yehia und dachte nicht daran zu überlegen, ob er vielleicht in ihr sein könnte? Die kindlichen Augen Yehias brachten Meriam ihrem unausweichlichen Schicksal näher. Die zwanzig Jahre Altersunterschied zwischen ihnen hätten ihr viele interessante Geschichten bescheren können, die sie angeregt und begeistert angehört hätte. Sie hätten ihre Vorstellung, Yehia sei nur ein Synonym für den Tod, der über ihrem Leben steht, verdrängt.

Jetzt geht Meriam oft auf den Straßen der Innenstadt spazieren, die sich wie die Arme eines Tintenfischs ausstrecken. Sie verlangsamt ihren Gang vor den Plätzen, an denen sie früher zusammen waren und schaut sich die Gesichter der Gäste hinter den gläsernen Vitrinen der Kaffeehäuser an. Sie erkennt aber niemanden von ihnen, obwohl sie diese Plätze so oft besucht hat. Sie bleibt auf ihrem nicht enden wollenden Weg, ist aber von Furcht erfüllt, wenn sie nachts die Kasr El Nil Straße betritt. Auf der Kreuzung mit der Sherif Strasse spürt Meriam, dass all ihre Furcht vor diesem Viertel Kairos berechtigt ist. Denn dieser Teil von Kasr El Nil sieht so aus, als ob er einer Horrorgeschichte entstammt. Er ist geprägt von Dunkelheit und von seinen verfallenen Gebäuden, die wie Ungeheuer aus alten Sagen aussehen, und er ist menschenleer.

*) Sofia ist die geistig verwirrte Großmutter der Erzählerin, die alte Papiere sammelt.

Maryam's Maze

NOVEMBER 1, 2015 / SKEPOET2

By: C. Derick varn

Mansoura Ez Eldin’s Maryam’s Maze is a deeply dream-like novel focusing on a woman who is increasingly between worlds in a limbo where dreams and forgetting as well as history collapses. Ez Edlin’s narrator cuts back and forth between Maryam’s fugue-like state in the story present as her boyfriend and the life she knows seems to fade away, and a very mythological seeming childhood at the Palace of El Tagi. Paul Starkey’s translation is extremely readable in precise prose, but without losing that fugue-like quality that the narrative must maintain.

Elements of the novel are deeply rooted in exploration in the relationships between women and their own bodies as well as the way those embodied selves interact with identity in time. The entire saga begins when Maryam’s ghost double stabs her in a dream, and then Maryam awakens in her family flat, her past life seemingly erased and the life of her family playing more and more a dominant role in the narrative. Maryam’s own identity seems to be increasingly subsumed by the relationships and histories of women in her past and the men around her. Furthermore, the line between life and death is crucial to the book as much of it seems to be a mediation on exactly how dreams are like being between life and death, history and self-mythology.   An understanding of Islamic beliefs around spirit doubles and the history of Egypt—as many of Maryam’s ancestors seem to represent different ways Egyptians and the many ethnicities within Egypt reacted in the translation out of the colonial period and into Egypt’s modernity as a nation are crucial. Naser and other events in modern Egyptian history make appearances in various places into the background of Maryam’s life.

Female bodies, ghosts, the shadows of male figures that seem almost entirely exterior paint the book. Ez Eldin’s style is fragmented, bold, and highly lyrical in Starkey’s translation and I imagine even more powerful in the original Arabic. The cultural context enriches the interiority of Maryam, but it is not dependent on it. Ez Eldin seems keenly interested in humanity as whole as well as woman in general—Maryam’s particularities and the boldness of the women in Maryam’s life are fascinating specific but also easily can be imagined in other cultural contexts.

Ez Eldin’s work is deeply poetic even in translation, and moving in a way that both innovative but sincere in way innovative writing often seems not to be. It is my hope that her work is translated more widely into English and that she is read more in the English speaking world.

Maryam’s Maze by Mansoura Ez Eldin (translated by Paul Starkey) (AUC Press, 2007).

Via: Symptomatic Commentary.

SYMPTOMATIC COMMENTARY

SYMPTOMATIC COMMENTARY

Maryam’s Maze by Mansoura Ez Eldin (translated by Paul Starkey)

C. Derick Varn 

Mansoura Ez Eldin’s Maryam’s Maze is a deeply dream-like novel focusing on a woman who is increasingly between worlds in a limbo where dreams and forgetting as well as history collapses. Ez Edlin’s narrator cuts back and forth between Maryam’s fugue-like state in the story present as her boyfriend and the life she knows seems to fade away, and a very mythological seeming childhood at the Palace of El Tagi. Paul Starkey’s translation is extremely readable in precise prose, but without losing that fugue-like quality that the narrative must maintain.

Elements of the novel are deeply rooted in exploration in the relationships between women and their own bodies as well as the way those embodied selves interact with identity in time. The entire saga begins when Maryam’s ghost double stabs her in a dream, and then Maryam awakens in her family flat, her past life seemingly erased and the life of her family playing more and more a dominant role in the narrative. Maryam’s own identity seems to be increasingly subsumed by the relationships and histories of women in her past and the men around her. Furthermore, the line between life and death is crucial to the book as much of it seems to be a mediation on exactly how dreams are like being between life and death, history and self-mythology.   An understanding of Islamic beliefs around spirit doubles and the history of Egypt—as many of Maryam’s ancestors seem to represent different ways Egyptians and the many ethnicities within Egypt reacted in the translation out of the colonial period and into Egypt’s modernity as a nation are crucial. Nasr and other events in modern Egyptian history make appearances in various places into the background of Maryam’s life.

Female bodies, ghosts, the shadows of male figures that seem almost entirely exterior paint the book. Ez Eldin’s style is fragmented, bold, and highly lyrical in Starkey’s translation and I imagine even more powerful in the original Arabic. The cultural context enriches the interiority of Maryam, but it is not dependent on it. Ez Eldin seems keenly interested in humanity as whole as well as woman in general—Maryam’s particularities and the boldness of the women in Maryam’s life are fascinating specific but also easily can be imagined in other cultural contexts.

Ez Eldin’s work is deeply poetic even in translation, and moving in a way that both innovative but sincere in way innovative writing often seems not to be. It is my hope that her work is translated more widely into English and that she is read more in the English speaking world.

Via: symptomaticcommentary.wordpress.com

The Best of 2008

Ahmed Khalifa

As for the best book I read in 2008, the answer is simple...

Maryam's Maze (متاهة مريم) By Mansoura Ez El Din:

Mansoura Ez El Din's tribute to Gothic literature is nothing less than a marvel. With Egypt's bestseller lists cluttered with repetitive, passive aggressive fiction and non-fiction about Buildings, taxis and problems with the Middle East, here is a book that attempts to do something different and pulls it off in spades.

A harrowing and highly compelling psychological study of a woman's descent into madness, Maryam's Maze uses the Gothic archetypes and imagery as a launching pad and runs with them through a series of vignettes, images and characters that are for the most part unforgettable. Ez El Din's stylish prose, tireless imagination, and penchant for darkly surreal images, make it one of the most surprising and original books to come out of Egypt in a long time. A must read. (Also available in an English-translated edition).

Via: Arabic-lit.blogspot

23 December 2008

Maryam and the Minotaur

Last week at the headquarters of her new Cairo publishers, Dar Al-Ain, Mansoura Ez-Eldin read from and signed copies of her second novel, Wara' Al-Firdaws (Beyond Paradise), a sort of psychological thriller and Bildungsroman rolled into one. Comparing the new book to Maryam's Maze, her 2004 novel, translated by Paul Starkey, Youssef Rakha spoke to Ez Eldin about her work, her life and the overlap between the two.

Youssef Rakha

Though she published only three books in nearly a decade, Mansoura Ez-Eldin (b. 22 March 1976) has maintained a high profile on the literary scene since she graduated from Cairo University in 1998. She is the books editor at the most popular cultural weekly in the country, Akhbar Al-Adab, where she got a job in the same year. By 2001, though already married to a fellow young writer whom she also met there, her first book, a collection of short stories titled Daw' Muhtazz (Trembling Light), was published to acclaim from a battalion of former teachers, mentors and admirers, including well-known figures like critic Mohammad Badawi, novelist Gamal El-Ghitani (the editor of Akhbar Al-Adab ), even the late philosopher Mahmoud Amin El-Alim. In the next two years Ez Eldin would go through both pregnancy-birth and the death and dying of her mother, experiences she would lugubriously internalize and eventually, from 2002 to 2009, transform. Working every day, however little the time left her after both job and small family are paid their dues, she draws up character sketches, composes dream studies, and occasionally develops a text into a short story -- which she might subsequently use as a chapter in a novel.

Correspondences are frequent and at least once, in the course of writing Maryam's Maze, Ez-Eldin had all but given up on resolving one particular complication when she realized that one of her early short stories provided her with exactly the narrative development she needed; she simply had to insert that short story unaltered for the novel, apparently unrelated, to flow exactly as she had envisaged it. Correspondences could also occur between literature and life, in equally unexpected ways. Ez-Eldin recounts that, during her mother's last days at the hospital, the woman "to whom I owe absolutely everything" often asked about her writing. "The idea of me writing pleased her," and so, despite the mayhem that consciously prevented her from doing it, at the hospital she would take out her old notes and exercises and pretend to be working on those texts that had made her mother proud of her when they appeared in well-known newspapers and magazines. "After a while I realized that these short stories were actually developing into Maryam." The slim volume, which makes up in intensity for what it lacks in extent, concerns a young woman, her close friend or double, and the large house of a provincial patriarch which, following the young woman's move to Cairo, appears to her as a Labyrinth, its large and deeply intermingled cast of occupants -- ghosts, dream figures, real people? -- constituting a sort of Minotaur of the mind. And so there seems to be yet a third level of correspondence: paradoxically, while she consciously rejected myth, justifying Maryam's visions with recourse to psychology, Ez-Eldin was in fact producing a grassroots version of one of the world's best celebrated myths, and feminizing its hero.

Whatever else you say about it -- and Wara' Al-Firdaws could conceivably make you say something different – Ez Eldin's writing emerges out of a place both mysterious and dark. For seven years now, while advancing her journalistic career and creating a home life sufficiently different from her family background for her to be at peace with, Ez Eldin has also been working through "existential questions, anxiety, discomfort, fear" -- personality traits, she says, that have been with her at least since the unexpected, seemingly absurd death of her father when she was aged nine (which also explains her reading Camus and other adult books at an extremely early age). "They are basically to do with the idea of death," these questions, "the idea of dissolution, breakdown. Not breakdown in the psychological sense, but the idea of this human constitution being on the verge of ceasing, at any moment. Termination," she muses. "The whole thing coming to an abrupt end. A somewhat strange imagination," she interrupts herself to chuckle. And it is at this point, no matter how much I object that her imagination is actually in no way strange, that Ez-Eldin and her work finally come together for me. I have known her for many years and she has never struck me as capable of anything more disturbing than a whimper. Of all the fiction writers and poets who emerged in the 1990s, she comes across as perhaps the most psychologically balanced -- quiet, hardworking, focused. There is a kind of no- nonsense conservatism about her, a kind of respectability. This might explain the fact that, from an early age until eight years ago, she wore hijab -- a fact she seldom mentions, and then only to say that it was an outward shift to do with her pilgrim's progress from the countryside to the city, not with the substance of her relationship to God.

This, on the one hand; and on the other hand, her work: Never mind that the very premise of the Maze is a dream in which the protagonist seems to be knifed to death by her Doppelganger: a weird rite in which the latter dies equally graphically. In Wara' Al-Firdaws a similar duo, Salma and Gamila, play out a puzzling relationship implying anything from schizophrenia in one or both of them to lesbianism; frighteningly rather than bafflingly, the precise nature of their connection is never stated. Aside from the two of them, however, there is at least one gory death, a series of encounters with the ghost of the dead man (notably sexual encounters with his as yet young attractive wife), and beatings. Despite her attempt to depict a whole world, her conscious marginalization of Salma and Gamila, the sense of mystery, of the paranormal, of unaccountable powers interfering with irrational drives, is still there. Ez-Eldin tells me that Badawi, whose lectures she attended at the time, coined a term for her earliest short stories: "writing the secret" ( kitabat al-sirr ). Each text seems to be a secret, a clockwork mini information system that, however multifarious, remains self-contained. Ez-Eldin mentions, in this context, her debt to the horror film and her interest in the therapeutic effect of writing (Salma, who edits short stories for publication in a newspaper, starts writing a novel on the advice of her psychiatrist); she identifies imagination with fear. This is not every day, realistic fear, which -- in line with the impression Ez-Eldin gives of herself -- seems to be well under control. The fear that is at odds with Ez-Eldin's poise, which nonetheless comes through with amazing intensity in her books, is something far more primal. In her mind, she explains, fear of the dark (the childhood experience par excellence) takes on the deepest metaphysical dimensions. "You'd be surprised," she says, "how basic my fears are."

Set against the backdrop of the shifting fortunes of the brick making industry in the Delta in the mid-1980s -- perhaps the first mention in contemporary Arabic literature of the otherwise oft-cited phenomenon of tagrif, which eroded agricultural land before the shift to concrete -- Wara' Al-Firdaws draws a much sharper distinction between the two settings informing Ez-Eldin's experience. First, there is the tiny village where, in the absence of basic public amenities, Ez-Eldin enjoyed a nonetheless unusually prosperous upbringing as the spoilt but remarkably successful school child at the heart of an extended family so large and close knit, so conservative and so rich that her husband, on first being introduced to it, could not help comparing it to the mob in The Godfather. Secondly, there is Cairo, the infinitely larger place to which Ez-Eldin's passage -- a hitherto unthinkable breach of tradition facilitated by her mother -- gradually allows for a clear perspective on "just how strange and unusual this experience of the countryside really was". The book began as an account of her mother's life, a fictionalized biography not unlike Hanan Al-Shaykh's Hikayati Sharh Yatoul (My Life, A Long Story) -- whose publication in 2005 discouraged Ez-Eldin from doing the same thing again -- so she quickly gave up on this side of what she was already envisaging as a larger, intergenerational variation on Maryam, one that replaced the paranormal with "the mythology of the setting" and in which the central (dual) character had less of a role to play. "As always," Ez-Eldin says with conviction, "the work imposed its own logic."

Partly because it contains more comedy and juxtaposes a greater number of stylistic registers, partly because it has a more definite social-historical reference point, Wara' Al-Firdaws has already been hailed as more accessible than Maryam. Aside from widening the scope of her work without making concessions to the market, however, Ez-Eldin had no intention of compromising her notion of what writing actually involves: a process of imagining, primarily out of that primal fear of sudden dissolution, people and places that resemble the world rather than referring to it per se. Here as in Maryam, consequently, almost every character in the book is imagined. "If people back in the village read Wara' Al-Firdaws," she insists, "no one would recognize anyone." The process seems integral to Ez-Eldin's way of dealing with a suffocating environment, which has been very different from straightforward rebellion or insurgency, and reflects her view of herself not as woman writer but as a writer who happens to be a woman. She behaves like a virus, she says, working from the inside; she instills herself in the host -- "the mafia" of her extended family -- precisely in order to transcend it. And though outwardly her own life has been more or less conservative, she is careful to point out that she instituted a nuclear family ( usrah ), not an extended family or tribe ( 'a'ilah ). Like few writers of her generation, rebellion and transcendence have been matters of the mind; and she still dislikes any predetermined idea, however positive, being imposed on what she does: the Woman, the Body, the Provinces are all candidates; she rejects them all. At the most obvious level it is madness that she is really interested in, (in)sanity, "but it is not as if I studied psychology or apply it in any systematic way". Even the Novel does not bind Ez-Eldin.

It is something of a cliché by now to speak, borrowing critic Gaber Asfour's expression, of the Age of the Novel, which has driven many an excellent short story writer and poet to switch genres. Having published Wara' Al-Firdaws, Ez-Eldin is -- by contrast -- in the process of putting together a new collection of short stories. It is a form she loves, she says, a form both difficult and rewarding, and never separate from or in contradiction to the literary project her two novels have pursued. She has no doubt that her readership will engage with her stories just as enthusiastically, and though she would be hard pressed to identify this the constituency of that readership, unlike many contemporary young writers, she distances herself totally from the discourses and debates of sales, popularity and what makes for a successful book. "People accuse serious writers of obscurity," she says, "of looking down on readers. But who is to say that readers are less intelligent or less complicated than the writers? Who is to say that it is making assumptions about how much readers can understand that means looking down on them?”

July 2009

Al-Ahram Weekly

The Complete Review's Review of Maryam's Maze

By: M. A. Orthofer

       Maryam's Maze follows a young woman, Maryam, on a journey of personal exploration -- in the present and the past -- that suggests not so much a physical maze but a metaphysical one. Maryam is unsure of the places she finds herself in, and there is no trace of people she expects to find at certain addresses. The reality of her memory and mind and the reality she encounters seem separate -- all the way up to such significant facts like whether or not she was married to a man name Yahya, as she finds a marriage certificate suggesting they had been married, even though: "She was certain, or she had been, that she had never been married to Yahya, and that there should never have been a certificate."

       The novel opens with Maryam waking -- or seeming to wake -- from a dream. It is, in fact, unclear whether she is even alive, as:



Maryam felt that she had been reduced to nothingness. She no longer had any physical existence to fill a space in the void.

       She considers both the world around her -- trying to find a hold among familiar places and people (which prove elusive) -- as well as in her past, memories of the person she was. She is confused by the situation she finds herself in -- at one point thinking: "she had either lost her memory or her reason".

       The most stable site is El Tagi, the family estate, and brief mentions of it precede each of the chapters of Maryam's story. These short pieces suggest a haunted sort of place imbued with death, fertile ground for fantasies, even if the memories of her time and the people there are generally fairly mundane.

       From domestic scenes, a childhood friend, her schooling (successful early on, until her mind drifted off the subjects ...), to the time when Nasser's shadow loomed large, the story flits across memories, as well as the present in which Maryam tries to find some hold. There are some scenes and descriptions that are firm and clear, but for the most part the novel floats (or, ultimately, is mired) in a fog of vagueness: even the strongest scenes are not connected enough to form a substantial picture of Maryam, her life, and her condition -- perhaps appropriate for someone who feels she has: "been reduced to nothingness", but not always easy for a reader to appreciate.

       There's the explanation:

     It's a life of glass, a brittle life that can be smashed at any moment, by any chance event. And her particular life, if she has a life, is glassy twice over.

       Maryam's Maze proceeds almost gingerly, as if Ez Eldin fears any firmer touch would splinter and break her protagonist all apart, but a stronger guiding hand -- or one willing to smash away, and then pick up the pieces -- might have been welcome for navigating this particular maze.


The review was published by "The complete Review" on 20 April 2014

Maryam’s Maze by Mansoura Ez Eldin

October 7, 2012

By Viswanathan Somanathan


I discovered Mansoura Ez Eldin through an interview of hers that I read in the newspaper. The interview was impressive and it looked like she was one of the new voices of Arabic / Egyptian literature. I haven’t read much of Arabic literature (I don’t think I have read any – shame on me!) and so I thought I will start with one of her works. I discovered that ‘Maryam’s Maze’ was her most famous work. So, I got it and I read it. It is a slim book – around a hundred pages – and I read it in one sitting. Here is what I think.





‘Maryam’s Maze’ is about Maryam who gets up one morning and discovers that she is living in a strange house. She tries to meet one of her friends and finds that her friend is missing. She has a date with her boyfriend but he doesn’t turn up. When she goes to his office, she discovers that there is no one with his name who works there. She goes back home (the strange house she woke up in) and looks at old newspaper cuttings she has, in which her boyfriend has written articles. She discovers that those articles are all missing. Maryam realizes suddenly that though she lives in the same city that she used to live earlier, she doesn’t know anyone there and all the people she knew had somehow disappeared. She is bewildered by this. At this point, we the readers are not sure whether this whole sequence of events actually happens or whether they are a part of Maryam’s dream.



After the first chapter, the story travels back and forth to the past and the present. We learn about Maryam’s family, her parents, the woman her father loves, her grandmother, her friends, her childhood. While we get a glimpse into Maryam’s past, the story also continues to tell us about Maryam’s quest for the truth about her present.



If I stand apart from the book and look at it from some distance, I can say that the book has two significant parts – a dreamy, surreal part which is set in the present and a concrete part which is set in the past. There are nine, unnumbered chapters. The chapters on the present and the past interleave with each other. The chapters on the past talk about history, life in Egypt, a little bit of politics. The chapters on the present are surrealistic, even avant garde and grab the reader’s attention with their unusual strangeness.



For me, the favourite part of the book was the third chapter. It is about Maryam’s parents, Yusif and Narges. It talks about Narges’ life when she marries Yusif, about how she learns to live as a newly married young woman, about how she is shocked when she discovers that her husband is in love with another woman at the same time, about how she manages the difficult time during her pregnancy and the aftermath. It is a beautiful chapter and it elevated the book to sublime heights. One of my favourite scenes in this chapter is when Narges discovers in the middle of the night that there are big ants crawling all over her and the reason that they are doing that is because her breasts are filled with milk. What does one do in this situation? She is upset, confused and mystified.



There are going to be some spoilers in the next paragraph, and so please be forewarned.



Another interesting chapter is the seventh which reveals part of the mystery – atleast I think it does. It has beautiful passages and wonderful thoughts and insights. I couldn’t get most of the mystery though. (I am one of those guys who had to see ‘The Sixth Sense’ more than once to find out the truth about Bruce Willis’ character.) This chapter seems to suggest that there is the real Maryam and there is the spirit of Maryam which is an independent entity, which shadows her. In his note at the end of the book, the translator Paul Starkey describes this as ‘the idea of the qarin or qarina, or ‘spirit companion,’ a concept found in the Qur’an but which undoubtedly has its origins in pre-Islamic times.’ There are also a few scenes which remind one of ‘The Sixth Sense’ – Maryam tries to talk to people or touch them but they don’t seem to be aware of her presence. It all made me feel puzzled – was Maryam dead and was this her ghost? Or is this all a dream? Or is it her spirit, her qarina, which is telling the story, while Maryam is actually sleeping comfortably at home? There is one surprise which is revealed towards the end, but I couldn’t fathom the central mystery even after the last page. This is the kind of book that will lead to a fascinating book club discussion.



It is surprising how much we can enjoy a book, inspite of not being able to understand how the central mystery is resolved. I would have been disappointed with ‘Maryam’s Maze’ if I had read it when I was younger. However, now, I loved it. Each sentence in the book is beautifully constructed, there are beautiful thoughts and ideas, the prose is exquisite. I can imagine how it might have read in the original Arabic – it must be an absolute pleasure to read. Another thing which I found quite interesting about the book was this. It would have been easy for Mansoura Ez Eldin, as a woman writer from an Arab country, to take potshots at the patriarchal establishment and portray her country in not-so-good light. International readers would have lapped it up. But she hasn’t done that. She hasn’t taken the easy way out. She has written a book where each sentence is beautifully sculpted and where the whole story is a work of art. I admire her for that. (Of course, this is my own opinion. A more informed reader might see underlying subtext in the story.)



I loved ‘Maryam’s Maze’. It is a beautiful, slim gem. I want to read other works of Mansoura Ez Eldin now.



I will leave you with some of my favourite passages from the book.



She began to count her losses, which had piled up during the years of her marriage. She had known that marriage would make her lose herself, but had nonetheless immersed herself in it totally. She had abandoned her dreams of completing a master’s thesis in English literature on William Blake, and occupied herself with the intricacies of El Tagi’s family. Only now did she return, like a soldier who had rushed into horrendous battles, only to suddenly discover that the victories had not been credited to him, but rather to his commander.



Yusif knew better than anyone that Narges was in love with herself…in love with the young girl of eighteen she had been. She would have liked herself and her experience to have stood still at that age, with her personality at the time. For this reason, despite her love for Yusif, she had never wanted to be totally in love with him, or to immerse herself in him totally. She always looked at him as a person trying to steal from her the girl she had been and whom she still loved.



Death seemed to Narges terrifying and inhuman, but despite that, she wanted to die young and without getting ill. She didn’t want to see any more evidence of the body’s betrayal. She never wanted to witness it collapse, waste away, or turn into something resembling a corpse, quite remote from the beloved if frightening body that she had lived in and grown used to.



When Maryam looked at her, the other woman wondered whether her eyes saw the world exactly as Maryam did. Did people in general, she wondered, see things around them in the same way as others? What if there were very slight differences from one person to another, which when added together might lead to alarming results, as alarming as the chasm that separated their world from hers? Was it sight that defined everything? They existed because she could see them, while she did not exist because she was outside their field of vision.



A stranger knows the cities better than those born there. He remembers their features, and is familiar with every inch of their streets. His feet cling to the asphalt when he walks over it. He does not expect the city to cast him out far away where there is no one and nothing. The stranger tries harder to belong to the city than those who are native to it, for they have no need to prove anything, but walk on in a neutral way, paying no attention to the finer details of their city, looking at strangers with an almost vulgar politeness that springs from their sense of its great superiority.

Via: Vishy the knight blogspot.

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.