“My harsh experience taught me to make others happy, and my husband shares this with me. We know that God isn’t punishing us by making us not resemble others with complete bodies… We have been compensated for what our bodies lack with loving hearts and creative talents that planted love and appreciation for us in the hearts of others.”

Thus the stained glass artist Fatma El-Tanani in the introduction to her small book, Meshwari (My Journey), in which she narrates her struggle with a leg disability she was born with and how she overcame it through art. El- Tanani studied at the architecture department of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Helwan University, but later became a pioneer of stained glass art in Egypt. The form uses pieces of coloured glass to make images or designs for windows or other translucent objects. The glass is “stained,” by the addition of various metallic oxides while it is still in a molten state. It was popular in Roman times and is thought to have been rediscovered by German monk Theophilus in the 12th century.

El-Tanani highlights the moments of pain she has been through ever since she was a newborn child, describing them in simple but evocative language that enables a huge amount of empathy. She also narrates the steps she took until she became Egypt’s first female to work in the field of stained glass. Most importantly, she highlights what she learnt from her parents, who were always by her side. The values she learnt from her mother and father built her personality. For example, her father, an engineer, taught her from a very early age the concept of patriotism after the 1952 Revolution when he decided to call for the rights of his colleagues, the workers at the British petroleum company, which eventually cost him his job.

El-Tanani’s mother never left her side. She would bring her books to read. Her neighbour, Uncle Ismail, a former officer in the army, also used to buy her books.  El-Tanani now reads for four hours a day, a habit she recommends to the young. She also pays tribute to those who inspired her through her life journey, such figures as the novelist and then minister of culture Youssef Al-Sebaei, whose work inspired her and helped her overcome her pain. She identifies with one of the heroines of his novels, Nadia, who suffered from a similar medical condition.

“I recall my readings at that time when I was a child who was not yet 15 years of age. I remember Nadia, that delicate girl who suffered from polio, the heroine of the novel of the same name. Peaceful Nadia came from the distant past. I recall her dim presence. She is my sister in suffering. I identify with her.” She identified with her so much she wrote a letter to Al-Sebaei: “I am the real Nadia. I write to you while fighting my pain to express my gratitude and love.” Upon reading her letter he insisted on meeting her. He even sent her a special car and stepped out of the ministry headquarters to welcome her. This had a positive effect on little Fatma.

“You are different from others, and that is a beautiful thing. God chose you for this… A human being is made up of appearance and substance: the material appearance is perishable… As for the substance, that comes from both the heart and the mind, it is timeless and immortal,” El-Tanani’s psychiartrist, Zeinab Al-Ghateet, told her. Al-Ghateet also inspired El-Tanani because she too suffered from polio and still managed to obtain a PhD from the United States although her husband had to carry her into the clinic each day to meet her patients.

El-Tanani used to travel a lot and she spent a few years in London to study and work. Then she returned to Egypt to work at a private architectural company for 10 years, but it was a full-time job and she didn’t have much free time until one of her friends, the jewelry designer Suzan Al-Masri, suggested she should work with stained glass. She then contacted professor Kamal Hammouda, who introduced her to a professor of applied arts at the faculty who taught her how to work with glass. That was in 1981. After she returned from a scholarship in the US, she started working in the field. She worked from home, making Tiffany-style lampshades. She would read books in the field and make her own designs using copper rather than lead to join the glass together. Then she started making windows like the ones she did for the Othman buildings in Maadi, for which she used Islamic motifs. El- Tanani did a lot of work at St Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo and the Virgin Mary Church in Maadi as well, which is one of the most ancient churches in the city. She also renovated the windows of St Joseph’s Church in the downtown area, which has glass that dates back to the 1890s.

“Fatma is a beautiful soul who teaches us all resilience,” the writer Mohamed Al-Makhzangi, himself a psychiatrist, commented during her book launch at the Mashrabeya Gallery of Contemporary Art in Cairo this week. Al-Makhzangi also wrote the introduction of Tanani’s book. “The creativity of beautiful spirits leaves its traces in any type of creative activity it undertakes, whether it is art or writing… Such a book helps us all endure the atrocities of life and it also helps us discover things,” he wrote, comparing her writing to the stained glass and glasswork statues and lamps she makes as they both allow a person to delve into their inner self and find the positive things in their life that were otherwise hidden.

Writer Mona Anis, who edited the book for El-Tanani, comments on her style of writing. “The book is deep, but simple. It tackles many aspects of life experience… even if a writer my age is not a literary artist, maybe they still have something to say.” Anis says the book has inspired her to write something of her own. “After a person grows old there will certainly be something to leave to people. In Fatma’s case there is the experience of suffering because of her disability… there is struggle. For instance, she reached Siberia to cure herself and this could benefit people. She wrote a condensed autobiography of only 86 pages.”

It took El-Tanani four years to write her book. “All I am doing with this book is to show people who suffer from pain how to cope with their pain and how to adapt to it,” El-Tanani says, adding that what really helps a person in pain is the love of their family members and close friends. “Love really helps a person bounce back.” The book helps anyone, especially young people with disabilities, to cope with life, inspiring them never to give up in the face of difficulties. El-Tanani shares many situations in which she was discriminated against because of her disability and most importantly how she managed to deal with such situations to inspire others to follow her example. She also gives them practical examples of how she managed to do what she wanted despite her medical condition, which inspired her family and close friends and anyone who met her on a professional or even a social basis. She teaches the young that they should not be ashamed to ask for help when they need it.

One instance is when El-Tanani narrates her adventures during a hitchhiking trip across Europe with her twin sister Aziza and describes how she wasn’t so confident at first but later developed a sense of confidence. “I discovered that my self confidence comes from the inside,” she comments.  El-Tanani closes her book with an inspiring saying she would always cite to herself at times of difficulty. “No matter how long the hours of the night are, the sun will always rise… I hope this book reaches everyone. I hope all youth with disabilities can start on the right path. I hope this book will be a source of inspiration for them.”

* A version of this article appears in print in the 14 November, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly