While the months since January 2011 have seen Egypt turn into a political theater, most of the nation’s media outlets and cultural events have been focusing on the country’s flourishing artistic renaissance with its booming visual arts exhibitions and performances.But the art scene is not the only cultural arena coming out of the ashes. A group of writers, among them 25-year-old Mahmoud Mansi, has been working to bring Egyptian literature in line with the artistic rebirth by creating the Forgotten Writers Society, a foundation to empower Egyptian writing.
Mansi first had the idea back in 2011, a month after the January 25th Revolution. He explains that his aim was to empower writers in Egypt not only by encouraging them to write but also by giving them a chance to publish their work abroad.
“I was inspired because when I [saw] people after the revolution cleaning the streets and doing all those social [deeds], I [realized I had] never before seen this cooperation between Egyptian minds,” he says.
In 2010 Mansi published A Journey from Darkness to Light, a novel tackling issues of philosophy, life and spirituality. That year his entry “The Island” won a Sea of Words literary award in a short-story competition for young writers from the 43 countries in the Union for the Mediterranean. He has also written for various Egyptian magazines such as Campus and Identity. Mansi holds a Master’s degree of marketing from the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport in Alexandria, and since 2009 he has worked in the academy’s HR department.
Mansi felt a need to channel his energies through writing because “it has always been an individualistic kind of art job.” With his first project, he wanted to introduce something new to Egyptian culture: a compilation of contemporary short stories by different authors in one book, using material generated during writing workshops.
This project first started as a collaboration among Mansi’s writer acquaintances, who like him were based in Alexandria. They wrote short stories about the revolution since everyone was experiencing it . The project took them a year to complete, but the book has yet to be published. The main team working with Mansi consists of Mostapha Halim, a photographer and designer; Amel Mostapha, a painter and photographer; Dina El Shaarawy, an editor and critic; and Aya Sami, responsible for marketing, contacting publishers and assisting Mansi.
Mansi says it was a way to get the Egyptian point of view out to the world. “We found that the [...] foreign media, was writing every day about Egypt but they were writing from their view and of course the reporters are all non-Egyptians. So we wanted to introduce the revolution from our own perspective through literature.”
Through the Forgotten Writers Foundation, a name that was chosen literally to represent according to Mansi “the forgotten writers of Egypt,” a vision for literature and writers has been set. Mansi emphasizes that he was keen on bringing underground and non-published writers into the project as he thinks they are sometimes more talented than the published ones.
“We want to deliver forgotten literature, which is Egyptian literature, to the other shore. This is the main mission of the foundation,” explains the writer.
The foundation attempts to collect works through three channels. The first is to encourage authors to write a book in English and publish it abroad so it can reflect Egyptian contemporary literature. The second is to identify short stories written for international writing competitions to offer a chance for Egyptian writers to establish a name for the country in literature. The third approach is to work on translating classical works produced by Egyptian writers.
“Only Naguib Mahfouz has all of his works translated,” says Mansi. “For most of the other [Egyptian] writers you will only find a few books translated. They are not well publicized.”
When the foundation decided to launch its second project, Mansi thought of turning the collaboration of authors into a writers’ competition as way to give more people a chance to be part of the foundation and enhance productivity.
Originally starting as a Facebook note, the competition soon turned international when foreign writers showed interest in participating.
“It was for the best,” says Mansi. “This way we became the first in Egypt to [launch] an international writing competition.”
|
The foundation’s first writing competition, sponsored by MSN Arabia, launched in December 2011 with the theme of the “Resurrection of Ancient Egypt.” Mansi says they chose to talk about Pharaonic Egypt because the theme has been tackled mostly by classical writers, but rarely by contemporary ones. Entries were to be submitted as literary shorts about Ancient Egypt with an historical background.
“We chose topics that would interest global writers and readers when published, so it was a challenge for writers because they had to read about Ancient Egypt and Egyptology,” Mansi says. “We are challenging the writers to train themselves and write in a short period.”
That first competition only received 30 entries, half from Egyptian writers and the other half from writers from countries such as India, the United States, South Africa, Germany and Lithuania. According to Mansi, some of the foreigners wrote stories that were very “Egyptian, as if they really understand the culture and the spirituality.”
The first contest yielded a total of 16 winners. The entries covered a number of different genres, which Mansi says included “some political, supernatural, metaphorical and dark stories, so I divided them into these groups, and chose the best in each.”
The foundation’s current competition takes the theme of “Women’s Domination” and was launched on March 8 to coincide with International Women’s Day. Mansi said the team chose this topic because the issue of women’s rights and women’s dominance exists all over the world. In this second competition, which closes on July 31, the discussion is open to debate and exchange about how different cultures define women’s rights and powerful women.
“I wrote in the competition guidelines that it was open to male and female, feminists and anti-feminists. This is a chance for each individual to explain their own philosophy regarding this theme,” says the writer. He said that there were a number of reasons for choosing this theme. Among them, Mansi has dedicated many of his writings to feminism, with one of them telling the story of a woman ruling Egypt. The mishaps of the International Women’s Day in 2011 and the collaboration and strength of the women of Tahrir were also factors.
For Mansi, this and other competitions are not just a step toward creating a name for Egyptian contemporary literature. “It’s is a chance for democracy in Egypt through literature,” he says, “a new kind of democracy.”
The deadline for the Forgotten Writer’s Foundation’s “Women’s Domination” competition is July 31. For more information and how to participate, visit Mahmoud Mansi’s blog at mahmoudmansicriticreviews.blogspot.com
|
|
|
Comments
Leave a Comment