Egyptian writer and novelist Samar Nour deals with writing as a horizon for experimentation and discovery of the self and the world, moving between the short story and the novel, between realism and fantasy, and across different times and social environments, without abandoning concerns related to memory, identity, and the ambiguous relationship between reality and the perceptions that the individual and collective imagination creates about it.
From “Your Secret Place” to “Statues of the Elves” and “The Six,” her narrative worlds and construction methods are multiple, while questions of power and social restrictions, especially in her relationship with women, remain present in her experiences, in addition to her preoccupation with the ability of memory to reshape the past, and with the shifting boundaries between reality and illusion.
In her novel “Asha,” which won the Katara Award, she returns to her Nubian roots, drawing inspiration from an old family story to build a world in which myth, history, and popular heritage intertwine, far from reducing Nuba to themes of nostalgia, loss, and displacement. Through the other two parts of the novel, “The Scarab and the Moon” and “The Day the Red Man Arrival,” you go through a narrative experience based on building the story and then reviewing it from different angles of vision.
Here is an interview with her:
> In “Asha,” Nubia appears as an integrated world of stories, myths, and rituals, and not just a geographical background for events. What prompted you to restore this world, and how did you work on its historical and heritage details, especially since you returned to a relatively distant period of Nubia’s history?
- I am of Nubian origin, my roots belong to the Nubian village of El-Shibbak, but I was born in Cairo, where my family has settled since the 1930s, but I did not find the motivation to write about Nubia before “Asha”, and I saw myself as a daughter of Cairo in all its details, but the world that was born from recovering a family story from my childhood about the origins of my family, this world I discovered after years of searching through books and recording with family elders that it had never left me, but rather I was recovering things from my childhood memory about women. They used to come from the village to visit my grandmother, and I found that I was inhabited by this world, even if I was only aware of it through writing. As for working on the historical and heritage details, it was necessary not only to regain my awareness of the shift inside me, but also to understand the characters, their motives, and their angle of view on life. Perhaps the story is the same in every place and time. Everyone is born and dies, rejoices and grieves, but knowledge of the details of the world is what creates difference and understanding the nature of conflict.
> The presence of the Nuba in Egyptian literature has often been associated with themes of nostalgia, loss, and displacement, while in “Asha” you present a living society with its contradictions and conflicts. Were you interested in moving beyond this traditional image? How do you view the position of Nubian literature in the Egyptian and Arab novel scene?
- I am preceded by a great achievement that critics put under the term Nubian literature, starting with the novel “The Shamandoura” by Muhammad Khalil Qasim, then the works of Yahya Mukhtar, Idris Ali, Hajjaj Adul, and Hassan Nour, which were linked to Nubia and the themes of nostalgia, loss, and displacement. Perhaps Idris Ali went beyond that to criticize society sometimes, or variations of Hajjaj Adul’s works in places other than Nubia, such as Alexandria, the place of his birth, but in the end their works were framed in these themes. By the critics, the artistic aspect of their experience was not viewed as it deserved. Rather, the focus was always on the aforementioned themes. When I started writing, there was a belief that I would complete that path, but I did not feel capable of doing so. I held on to being a daughter of the city and its obsessions and fears in all of Asha’s previous works. I believe that I would not have written about Nubia if I had not been possessed by a world that carried my own aesthetic vision.
> Myth and history intertwine in the world of “Asha”, and folk tales sometimes seem to be a means of understanding the world, and at other times an authority that controls the destinies of the characters. To what extent do you worry about this overlap between truth and the alternative facts that the collective imagination creates?
- To a large extent, and perhaps it is an extension of my preoccupation with the games of memory and its ability to create a distorted reality and a distorted history, and what we might believe to be truth simply because it is what we are accustomed to present as truth without actual review. This is evident in previous works of mine such as the novel “Mahalak Secret” and the review of personal memory, or the novel “Statues of the Elves,” where psychosis and superstition appear to be a duality ruling personal and collective memory. As for “Asha,” in its two parts, I play the game of weaving a story with the certainty of the popular narrator in one part. “The Scarab and the Moon,” then demolished it and built a new story told by different characters in their vision of the world on “The Day the Red Man Arrival.”
> Your writing experience extends from short stories to novels, and over the years you have moved between different worlds and narrative styles. How do you see the development of your literary project since its beginnings? Are there questions or concerns that continue to accompany you despite the different forms and topics?
- I don't know. I try, play, and discover myself and the world around me, and I don't see myself as anything other than that child who loved disassembling her new toy until she discovered how it was made. So I now build new writing toys instead of all the toys that I disassembled and failed to put together again. Playing with imagination is all I am good at in life, and development does not come intentionally, but comes through attempts to understand oneself and the world, and perhaps failure in that is what drives us to continue playing.
> Your female characters, from the heroine of “Al-Sitt” to “Asha,” seem to be in constant confrontation with social restrictions and various authorities. Do you start from a conscious preoccupation with women's questions and freedom, or do these characters impose their own rebellion while writing?
- I am preoccupied with women’s questions and their freedom, but I am also aware of the nature of the art that I present, and I do not like to be driven by ideology of any kind while writing, but I am also aware that my composition, obsessions, and ideas impose themselves in previous stages and influence the choice of idea, building the world, and angle of vision. However, the characters impose their rebellion during writing and sometimes surprise me with paths that I had not anticipated.
> “Asha” with its two parts achieved a remarkable presence among readers, and the first part was crowned with the Katara Award. You indicated that you had not decided on the idea of turning the work into a trilogy. Could this success prompt you to rethink writing a third part? To what extent can the success of the work itself become a factor that influences the writer’s choices, and perhaps prompts him to invest in a fictional world that he did not intend to return to?
- I do not like to be motivated by anything in my writing other than the writing itself, and I do not find that investing in success is something that can occupy a writer who claims to have a writing project. Success is a good thing and a motivation to continue writing, but I have a lot to offer after “Asha.” I will certainly return to the world of Nubia, and perhaps I will return to Asha herself if her world occupies me again, its characters control me, and I find something new to offer through it.
> You move between very different times, environments, and worlds, from contemporary society to historical Nubia, and from realism to fantasy. What challenges does moving between these worlds impose on you? Does each world require different narrative tools?
A large part of the joy of writing is facing challenges and moving between different worlds, finding solutions to the difficulties you face, and a language that is appropriate for your world, but a language that carries your own imprint at the same time, and a structure that is compatible with the nature of your text. Every world is a different experience and a new challenge facing the writer.
> After “Asha” won the “Katara” Award, and what this allows for the novel to reach new readers and be translated into English, how do you view the next stage of your literary project?
It seems that “Asha” has better luck than my previous works and can continue on her path. I hope that she will have success and shed light on my literary project. I hope that I will have the opportunity to republish my previous novels and short story collections. I also hope that I will not stand on “Asha’s” threshold and cross into a new world and new writing.
> What is the topic that occupies you now and that you are preparing to write about?
- I am occupied with a different world in terms of space and time, a contemporary novel but connected to a long history of magic and disappearance. I return to the Cairo I know with all its transformations and sudden changes in the past years.
I am preoccupied with women’s questions and their freedom, but I am also aware of the nature of the art that I present, and I do not like to be driven by ideology of any kind while writing.
“The Caravan” magazine, published by Saudi Aramco, presents its reader in its new issue with questions that go beyond the boundaries of culture and literature, to the future of man and his relationship with knowledge, technology, and nature. Through topics ranging from thought, arts, science, and the environment, the issue is concerned with a question that is repeated in various forms: What remains of human privacy in light of the acceleration of technical transformations and the changing patterns of knowledge and human experience?
Humanities...the crisis of status and the absence of criticism
The issue of “Humanities...Forgotten Facts” occupies a central position in the issue. It discusses the decline in the status of the humanities in the face of the rise of technical and applied specializations, and the accompanying skepticism about the feasibility of teaching philosophy, sociology, and literature, and the relationship of these specializations to the labor market and development requirements.
Drs. Abdel Salam Al-Wayel, Samaher Al-Dhamen, and Abdel-Salam Benabd Al-Aali are participating in the case, through three approaches that address the social value of the humanities, the crisis of teaching them in Arab universities, and the extent to which they retain their critical function.
Dr. Abdel Salam Al-Wayel rejects reducing the value of the humanities to employment opportunities and economic returns, and believes that they contribute to building identity, values, trust, and social cohesion, and that they are elements on which the economy itself is based. He asserts that the spread of artificial intelligence will increase the need for critical thinking, moral judgment, and understanding of human contexts, “which are capabilities that are difficult to reduce to automation.”
Dr. Samaher Al-Damen addresses the crisis of teaching the humanities in universities, pointing to the view that places scientific specializations in a higher rank than literary specializations. She pointed out that “some students enroll in the humanities out of necessity, as this is a stepping stone to move on to other majors.” She believes that “updating curricula alone is not enough unless the educational system and teaching methods change, and the university professor prepares for his role in stimulating curiosity and thinking.”
As for Dr. Abdel Salam Ben Abdel Ali, he presents a critical approach to the crisis of the Arab humanities, considering that it imported Western theories and methods without the historical and social conditions that produced them... “As a result of this; In many cases, they have turned into university courses that reproduce concepts, instead of becoming tools for understanding and criticizing society.
Benabdel Ali links this crisis to “the absence of a philosophical spirit, the weakness of the public sphere, and the separation of the university from society, all of which are factors that have limited the ability of the humanities to influence and produce critical thought.”
The case concludes that the crisis in the humanities is not only a crisis of feasibility or employment; “Rather, it is related to the structure of education, institutions, curricula, and the university’s relationship with society.” Restoring its position requires “moving from consuming theories to producing knowledge, and from defending its value to proving its role in understanding social and cultural transformations.”
Hamad Al-Jasser... teacher and researcher
In the section “Literature and Arts,” Abdulaziz bin Salamah reviews the scientific and cultural career of the Saudi scholar Hamad Al-Jasser, and his contributions to the development of education, journalism, and historical and geographical research in the Kingdom.
It discusses his journey with Arab and international manuscripts and libraries, his role in developing education in the Eastern Province and Najd, and encouraging literary activity among students, in addition to his journalistic leadership through the publication of “Al-Yamamah” magazine in 1953, and his contributions to the publishing movement in Riyadh.
The article presents Al-Jasser as “a model of an intellectual who not only produced knowledge, but also contributed to building educational and cultural institutions that preserve and disseminate it, and left a legacy of writings and investigations that dealt with the history, geography, and population of the Arabian Peninsula.”
In the same section, Ahmed Abdel Latif deals with the phenomenon of the “suburban novel” in Spanish literature, while Lamia Shamt reads the novelistic experience of the Sudanese Abdel Aziz Baraka Sakin, and its relationship with popular heritage. Ziad Al-Drees discusses Ibn Khaldun's fame, asking whether it reflects an actual reading of his works or a symbolic presence of his name.
The chapter also introduces the experience of the Chinese writer Ning Ken, discusses the feasibility of books teaching novel writing, and compares the two biographical films “The Woman” and “Michael” and the differences in their cinematic treatment. It also includes a poem by the Saudi poet Ali Al-Hazmi, and a reading of the experience of the visual artist Abdullah Al-Othman.
Who creates the mind of the future?
In the section “Horizons,” he discusses the topic “Pen or Tablet...Which one builds the student’s mind?” The impact of digital tools on learning, memory, and writing, reviewing educational experiments that moved toward using screens before reconsidering some of their results.
Related to this is the topic “This is How Social Media is Redefining Fame,” which examines the transition of fame from recognition of achievement to diffusion created by platforms and their algorithms.
The two topics raise questions about the impact of technology in shaping awareness and behavior, and not in facilitating life alone.
In the “Science” section, Khaled Karam discusses the role of scientific research and sports medicine in developing athletes’ performance and breaking records. While Saad Al-Qahtani discusses the hypothesis of the disappearance of bees from the world and its repercussions on food production and biodiversity. The cover photo, taken by Mohammed Al Ibn Al-Sheikh, of a bee on a lavender flower, is consistent with the theme “What if bees disappeared?”, which explains that the disappearance of these insects will not lead to the disappearance of all food, but it will affect the pollination of many crops and plants, and threaten the environmental balance.
In the “Science Imagination” corner, Hassan Al-Khater wonders about the possibility of a person dispensing with food and deriving his energy from sunlight, and the difficulties that prevent this from being achieved. The section also explores our tendency to humanize artificial intelligence, and addresses communication networks in forests; From bird calls, to the chemical signals of plants.
These topics reveal the magazine's interest in the relationship between scientific progress and human life, and in the questions that technology raises about the future of education, food, and the environment.
The Chair... a history of power and daily life
The issue devotes its file to the topic of the “chair,” in a treatment that goes beyond the history of furniture to its social, political, and artistic connotations, and reviews its transformations from a symbol of power and dominance into a daily tool for rest and work.
The file traces the development of chair designs across civilizations, and their impact on human health and social relations, exploring their connotations in Arab culture, ancient myths, and the Qur’anic text, and their presence in literature, theater, cinema, and plastic art.
In one of the articles in the file, Maha Qamar Al-Din discusses the history of the chair. From ancient thrones to plastic chairs, it reveals how it has become a sign of power, status and memory over the ages, and how aspects of the history of societies can be read through the things they made and used.
