Miral al tahawy biography of william

Someone who can explain what is happening in Egypt for those ten of fifteen years, or what is happening in Arab-Israeli conflict in Beirut, Lebanon. So that kind of novel, sometimes I choose to include it. It's there to inform people about the Middle East, to inform the students about something they care about. But when you speak about literature I feel it to be something magical, it's something different, which is really hard to be translated, first, because it's very connected to the language, the Arabic tradition, the symbols, the smells, the human beings that live.

That kind of literature does exist in America and Egypt and everywhere, but it's not bestselling, it's just something unique, and that you know it's unique. An academic might The novel that I may make a paper on is not the same novel I can teach in my class. When I have to write about something, I want to write something that this is what I think is literature.

We have, as people and authors from Africa or Middle East or Afghanistan, or wherever, a burden with a foreign audience, because their expectation is different. If you translate my novel, which is about an old refugee, she is seeking for herself It's not giving what I mean, this is America, it's a huge market, so people take what they need, of what you like.

For me, also, as a foreigner, who is trying to navigate the market of literature here in America, the NY Timesthe list of bestselling, which is every week, of libraries and market and stuff like that, this gives me an idea about what people consume. But it is not, in general, what I would like to consume, as a reader. Always, with the Middle East, literature is still a tool of explanation; we need a book to explain to your student, or your reader, what is happening, now.

Nice and clear and simple. That's actually not what literature can offer most of the time.

Miral al tahawy biography of william: Readings of the Egyptian writer Miral

Some literature can, but not every writer can do the same function. So I think, let's teach to survive. But when I'm a writer, I write to my own expectations. Or at least, I pretend that. I don't expect huge success, because I know that the market is very different than what the author or the writer thinks. When you are working as an academic, as a teacher or professor, or whatever, you know what kind of audience you have, what kind of reader, because you have students.

Usually, if you have one or two or three or maybe five that have a taste — or are educated to have a taste — the majority will not be the same, the majority just want the easy stuff to pass their exams, easily, that they can understand without doing their homework. They just want something available, something not hard to understand.

Miral al tahawy biography of william: Curriculum Vitae. Miral Mahgoub

Part of the motivation: what is the easiest part of this stuff, that gives you what you want directly, without the complication of literature. I think you understand. I'm a teacher, too! But then, who are your readers? You said that first, you pick your readers, so Who do you write for? Who do you imagine reading your work? I don't know, I don't have really When we were in Egypt, and had been reading Naguib Mahfouz, the impression we had was that [ imitates young person's voice ] What this old man was writing about is very When I was young, we were thinking that.

After a time, we came to recognize that he had huge experiences, and a huge influence. From time to time, when you grow up, your expectations and your tastes change. Because if I want to create a bestselling book, there are many ways. If you want to create something that you think is very special First, I say don't think about your readers, even if they are part of your work.

I'm trying to teach myself this, not to expect Because readers are not the same, and there is a history of reading. Think about what you want to say, clearly. I don't know if this fact saved me or not, but I've been trying to create it, trying not to think what kind of reader, what kind of expectation. In general, I have a small circle who are friends, and they are writers also, and we know which pieces are perfect.

Usually, when I read something good, first thing I do is post it on my Facebook. It is just to say that a good book is a good book. People know that, and don't care about the market. Because if the market creates it, it's not youit's your publisher, it's reviews, it's whatever. So I'm trying to do that. It's very hard, but I think it saved me. Especially in the age of the Internet, when you can find everything.

It's very surprising, when you can find that very, very superficial, or very, very weak literature makes a huge success. There is always something that surprises you about the market. So, for me, I feel that what is good I feel it is good and there are others who agree that it is good, and that's enough for me. I don't know what other people do, but this is my way to protect my own, as a writer.

This is my recommendation for anyone who wants to be a writer. Do you think being a teacher, an Arabic teacher, protects from that? That you don't have to sell a certain number of books to get by? I think it's a challenge, everywhere. Any writer in this miral al tahawy biography of william, publishing, translation. It is a challenge. You have to keep your soul safe, your spirit, your inners.

So you have something to invest in, and don't just turn yourself into others' reflection of you. That's something that's old, but it's a huge challenge. Photo by Jacob Remes. You know, I've spent a lot of time thinking about Brooklyn Heightswhich is a very melancholy novel, with a lot of quiet pain. It has an ending, but it doesn't really resolve: there isn't a happy ending, there isn't a sad ending.

There's no catharsis, perhaps. And I wonder, if you were writing for a mass-market audience, maybe you would need a story that has more of a resolution? The ending I have many friends who said that the ending is the best part of your novel. For me, trying to belong, it's something that has no end. I tried to make it like a memory, you can see in other people what you will be.

That's what the story is, that the hero, the main character that finds in the old lady's stuff, her own stuff. It's for me, the same destiny. Because you do not belong to somewhere, you don't really have someone to keep you It is the same. That is what I felt many times, when I was going through Saturday days, and everything is thrown out on the streets for anyone to take.

I've been looking for a home here in Arizona, and I went with my agent to many houses, and most of the houses are — since Arizona is a retirement place for old people, they had passed away and the family wanted to get rid of the houses — but I never bought any of these houses because I thought it was very hard to inherit the death of someone else.

But families, because the kids don't really care about that, they will give you everything. You can take everything. And it's full of very personal stuff! Like one day, I looked at a home, and it was a writer, full of manuscripts, and the family didn't want anything. Even the desks, the way he put his desk I felt like, yeah. But the end of the novel, that's something great, actually.

Take it, if you want it, it's something. Not only available, but people don't want it. So it's part of your history of who you are, your memories, but it's on the street. I can't find it. Honestly, even in Arizona, they ask me, why can't you find in America the dream.

Miral al tahawy biography of william: Critically acclaimed Egyptian author, Miral al-Tahawy

You've been a writer and a professor, America has given you a lot. People judge me this way. Your dream is a reality, because you came and now after a few years, you have a position, you have a home. But something that is very tiny, but is very important Your dream doesn't give you who you are. You just feel like you are not secure forever, you are not going to end up in your own land, you are somewhere else.

And for me, everything of me — every piece of me — will be on the street, and nobody will care about what I had. For the dilemma of the immigrant, there is no end. Maybe with a second generation, maybe with a son. But this feeling of homesickness, of insecurity, this is something that nothing can resolve. I don't know, the editor didn't say anything about the ending [ laughs ].

But that's the only thing, I've been thinking about during the writing. To catch this moment of Take me if you like, or if you want. When I was walking on the streets in Brooklyn, I found this sign "Take me if you want," which is very nice and generous, and I feel like this issue is not for people who want to purchase. It's all about me, as a human being.

I don't have a price. I don't have a history. I don't have When you say "take it," it's something without value. It's not about things, it's about human life. He's a person. He's a human being. The smallest stuff, thrown on the street. There's a line, early on, where she says that s he used to think of forgetting as escaping, but that now miral al tahawy biography of william forgotten was what she was afraid of.

One of the things I found so affecting, and moving, about this novel is the way Her son, for example; he's just an eight-year-old kid, but he's so pushy, so aggressive, so American. And she's so sensitive to it. There's a way in which the Hope and Change is being forced on her. The American dream almost becomes oppressive to her. For the older generation, for people my age I didn't come very early, I didn't think about moving away from home.

If you write in Arabic, your readers are Arab. At the time, in when I came, I was at the beginning of the moment of collapse. I felt that very strongly in Egypt, everything was clear for me, as a writer, that there is something will happen this society will explode, later, tomorrow or today, because anger was everywhere. And I wasn't able to live with this anger, in the streets, everywhere, this anger.

I left. And when I left, I left all my history as a writer. At my age, thirty-five at the time, I was not able to think in a different language than Arabic, I had spent years studying classical Arabic, I'm not able to write in a different language. I was really down about inspiration. What will make me write in America. I didn't study American literature or culture.

I was just trying to navigate I think that many people, because of political situations, they came at the same age, and they think, this will be a station. She earned her doctorate from Cairo University in Arabic language and literature. Her professional contributions include four academic books published in Arabic, nine refereed articles published in international peer-reviewed journals.

She also has published nine refereed book chapters in English. Mahgoub al-Tahawy has written four award-winning novels, each of which has garnered national and international recognition. Most are now taught around the world as part of standard curricula in Arabic literature in translation. Her literary work has now been translated into more than 15 languages.

Miral Mahgoub al-Tahawy has published two scholarly books in Arabic. It offers an overview of major works in modern Arabic literature that have provoked confrontations with state power, with readers themselves, or with religiously motivated groups. She was signed up by Hosni Soliman, [ 6 ] owner of Dar Sharqiyyat and publisher of some of the most critically acclaimed Egyptian literature of the s.

Inal-Tahawy moved to the United States. She served as an assistant professor in the foreign languages department at Appalachian State University in North Carolina. She was also the coordinator of their Arabic programme. She is currently an associate professor at Arizona State University. Al-Tahawy's most recent book, Brooklyn Heightshas met with considerable critical success.

Her work has appeared in two issues of Banipal magazine Al-Tahawy has a son. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk.