Bio
“Reading” and “Knowing Myself” in Cairo and Elsewhere
Being brought up by parents who are both writers for children, they practiced what they preached by reading bedtime stories to my brothers and me in Arabic, ones they had written themselves, and in English (from several volumes we have at home). Because these were memorable moments of joy, closeness and warmth for us as children, I read bedtime stories to my boys when they were little, sometimes even from the same volumes that I enjoyed when I was young. When I threatened: “no bedtime story today”, my boys would immediately obey (the list here is endless: eat your meal, do your homework, take a quick shower, turn the TV off). Now, I realize they never missed the school bus because they slept early and woke up on time in the morning. In retrospect, such a habit saved me from driving them to school and from wasting precious time and effort in the morning waking them up, which is a horror now that one of my boys is a banker and has a real problem waking up early.
As children, my father was in the habit of taking us to visit one of the sites of Cairo or Giza early in the morning during our holidays. Before every trip we were each required to search for information about the specific place we agreed to go to and we discussed what we read on the way. On the site we compared what we read with what we saw. When I once objected claiming I had no time to read, my father gave me two choices, either to read after we returned or postpone the outing. Explaining that this is God’s command, he quoted the first word revealed to the Prophet Mohamed by the Angel Gabriel “Read, Read, Read”. Being the eldest and the naughtiest, I argued “What if there is nothing to read about the place we are going?” “This is not possible,” my father pointed out, and explained that there are books about practically anything. “Even about buttons?” I asked, thinking I had identified a focus that had escaped writers. “Even about buttons,” he said.
In my first year at college, I received a present for my birthday, namely an “Autograph”, the note pad that girls give to their friends and teachers who write a few words of affection and/or praise. After one of our poetry lectures by Professor Magdy Wahba, I went up to him and gave him the Autograph. He gave it back to me and said “I hope you understand.” I quickly opened it and read: “Know Thyself.” Socrates, followed by his signature. I politely thanked him and walked away devastated. Expecting him to sing my praise especially that I was an active freshman in and out of class, this quote was deeply disappointing. I said to myself, “Of course I know myself, what is he talking about?” At the time, I did not understand the message, but in time I regarded Professor Wahba’s advice as a gift I cherished for life.
Until then, reading and writing were not linked in my mind. As an undergraduate I took translation courses more seriously than essay and comprehension. I do not recall having acquired any skills or training in writing an argument or a research paper. The comprehension class focused on training us to show we understood what we read, not on analysis and/or reflection. At that time I enjoyed letter writing and had pen friends all over the world. While writing to each, the idea of addressing a specific reader was clear in my mind simply because I wrote in Arabic to my pen friends in Egypt and in English to those elsewhere. Naturally the content was different since the letters in English boasted about Egypt and everything Egyptian. I continued writing letters, to my family this time, because during the summer after my freshman year I went to attend courses in Cambridge. These letters were more like journals in which I wrote in detail about what I read, did, saw and everyone I met. Writing letters at that stage of my life was easy and I went on and on and on. It is different now, though. The blank page or word document is intimidating and I think twice before I write and regard what I write as confessions or as giving the reader access to my heart and soul (which I am doing now).
The three instances that come to my mind when I think of writing are: first, working on my Ph.D. thesis; secondly, writing a paper on the image of Cairo in A. W. Kinglake’s (1809-1891) Eothen; and thirdly attempting to translate from Arabic to English. Producing a Ph.D. thesis under a capable, demanding supervisor is an incomparable learning experience. On many occasions the process of revising a chapter was even more difficult than writing the first draft. Because Chapter One was 50 pages long, when I reached page 30 while writing Chapter Two, I spent a week at a loss trying to think of what to say. I got in touch with my supervisor who said I should give him the chapter and start another. When he read it he said,” You’ve managed to prove your point and there is nothing to add.” At another point in time I went to him with a chapter and while skimming through it, he crossed out a quote that had taken me days to highlight and analyze. Shocked, I asked “Why?” to which he replied, “Rather simplistic”. When I make this comment to one of my students, I do so gently, remembering the devastation I felt. Rewriting the conclusion three times and revising the introduction after writing the conclusion were “spots of time” (to quote Wordsworth whose Prelude was the focus of my thesis), moments of light that I cherish.
After writing an M.A. thesis on Chaucer and a Ph.D. on Wordsworth I decided to concentrate my efforts on issues that relate to Egypt. Through reading, I acquired an interest in travel writing, specifically in travelers who came and wrote about Egypt. I read Edward Lane’s classic Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, but it was Richard Burton’s Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah, Alexander Kinglake’s Eothen”, and Florence Nightingale’s Letters from Egypt”, that inspired me to write. Writing about “The Image of Nineteenth Century Cairo as a Medieval City in Alexander Kinglake’s Eothen” was a “Know Thyself” experience. Although I was born and bred in Cairo I had to read about the history and geography of this great city before writing. While writing these papers, I felt I had adequate evidence that the misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Islam has deep roots in the past. Post September 11, I started to read about Islam and to write papers that help me in understanding why Muslims have such diverse views and interpretations of a single text, the Qur’an.
Now, translation. Because my professor of translation at college, Mohammed Enani, is the best in Egypt (he translated Paradise Lost, and twenty four Shakespearean plays so far), I always felt I would never live up to his expectations and therefore avoided this activity altogether. Being a student of English literature, but not a native speaker/writer of English and not having any training in writing in Arabic, I convinced myself that translation is not my cup of tea. Reading Enani’s translations, however, I marveled at his ability to convey the mood and spirit of the original text and his translations of Shakespeare, his transfer of verse into verse and prose into prose. For a long time I believed that translation requires a talent and a creativity of a certain kind that I could not explain and did not have. Experience has now led me to realize that translation is a skill that can be acquired through effort and with time. In December 2009 my English translation of Essam Youssef's novel A ¼ Gram was published. This was an enlightening experience. In 2014, my English translation of Abdel-Tawab Youssef's My Father: An Egyptian Teacher was published.