This year, the 57th fair welcomes a distinct voice from the southernmost tip of the continent—Professor Imraan Coovadia, A prolific South African novelist, essayist, and scholar at the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Creative Writing.
Invited by the Rosatom (Russia State Atomic Energy Corporation) is in Cairo to bridge the gap between two seemingly disparate worlds: the arts and the hard sciences. As a winner and proponent of the international "Future Past" (History of the Future) literary award, he advocates for a return to "technological optimism"—a genre of science fiction that envisions a future where ethical progress and energy infrastructure, such as Egypt’s El Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant, provide the foundation for human dreams.
In exclusive interview with Ahram Online, Professor Coovadia discusses the "radical thinking" provoked by the African continent, the visceral impact of energy security on a nation’s psyche, and why the future of African literature may no longer be found in the West, but in the shared interests of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean.
Professor Coovadia references the profound impact of energy systems on national stability. To understand the "lived experience" he mentions regarding South Africa's energy crisis, it is helpful to look at the correlation between power availability and economic health.
Coovadia has spent his career exploring the "paradoxes and complications" of a changing society. From his acclaimed historical fiction Tales of the Metric System to his deep dives into the non-violent philosophies of Mandela and Gandhi, Coovadia’s work consistently challenges the traditional "North-to-South" perspective of the world.
Ahram Online (AO): Could you introduce yourself to the Al-Ahram readers , share a bit about your background and your journey as a writer and scholar?
Imraan Coovadia (IC): I’m a writer and a scholar. I’m South African. I live in Cape Town. I was educated in the United States and, I’m sure it’s an experience many of your readers have, I can't recognize that country any more. My great- and great-great-grandparents came to South Africa from Gujarat, which of course alters my view on the waves of nationalist and racial feeling which have driven much of my country’s recent history. Of course, to be a minority of one, or even less than one, is an almost universal experience of writers. Maybe of reporters as well. Scholars, in my experience, flock together.
AO:What are some of your key publications, and how do they reflect your perspectives on contemporary African life?
IC: My novel, Tales of the Metric System, tells the story of South Africa’s change from a segregated society to an independent one, with all the challenges, paradoxes, and complications that come with that. I’ve also written non-fictional work on the spirit of non-violence, looking at three amazing figures (Tolstoy, Gandhi, Mandela) who were in many ways closely connected despite being of very different generations and never having met. I suppose I was trying to sketch a radical politics which is right for this north-to-south column on earth which we inhabit. I’ve also written some quantities of science fiction alongside these more conventional projects. Science fiction, I think, allows me to explore certain perspectives which are closed off in more straightforward or established genres.
AO:What are your thoughts on the Cairo International Book Fair, and what significance does it hold for writers and readers in Africa?
IC: I live in the Cape, the southernmost part of the continent, and Cairo is in the far north, of course, and I have always hoped that the continent can become more of a reading and thinking community, despite our differences of language, color, religion, and history. That we can look as much in from the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean rather than out to Europe and the United States.
AO: How do you see the cultural and literary connections between South Africa and Egypt shaping Africa's future, in the context of Africa’s diverse cultures?
IC: These links have been very tenuous and can only develop for the better. South Africa as a whole is an inward facing country. We have few connections to many of our regional neighbors. Angola, for example, might be on the other side of the world. Clearly Egypt is the central country of the Arabic language, but that’s a different kind of network. I would say that as we both develop, our connections should deepen. But it’s not guaranteed. Any truly enduring connection has to grow out of common interests and dreams, or perhaps simply the fear of being brushed aside as small to medium powers in the contemporary world.
AO: How does your participation in (CIBF) in collaboration with Rosatom contribute to cultural exchanges and dialogues?
IC: My participation in the Cairo International Book Fair contributes to cultural exchange by opening a dialogue between worlds that do not often meet: science, technology, and literature. I visited Moscow some months ago, as part of Rosatom’s literacy programme, and discovered it is Russia’s largest technologically advanced organization. Rosatom has a certain optimistic view of the future, part of why it sponsors an optimistic science fiction award, and in many ways I share that. Or hope for that on our continent, that we can create the infrastructure of our dreams.
From a writer’s perspective, energy systems may seem invisible, yet they quietly shape everything, economies, education, daily life, and imagination itself. Every science fiction writer understands that the future depends on vast, reliable, and affordable sources of energy. I also know from lived experience how profoundly the absence of such systems can affect a society: my own country was economically constrained for a generation when its power system failed. That experience makes it impossible to separate imagination from development.
So I wish for writers and ordinary citizens to share in the conversation about a technologically responsible future and socially meaningful progress alongside Rosatom and other organizations which are developing the capacity to build it.
AO: As a writer, how do you view the cooperation between Egypt, Russia, and South Africa in the fields of literature?
IC: Egypt and South Africa have never been closely in touch. Russia, on the other hand, has long played the part of an alternative pole in South African life, an alternative to Europe and the United States. This started quite early but its potential can be felt in the fact that Tolstoy’s last serious correspondence was with Gandhi (then in Johannesburg) and Tolstoy could imagine the civil disobedience campaign in then Natal and Transvaal as at the “center” of the world. This way of turning the map inside out, of finding the edges to be at the center, is the kind of radical thinking our continent can provoke.
AO: How do you portray the lives of ordinary people in Africa in your writings? What themes do you explore regarding their daily lives and the external influences that shape them?
IC: I only wish I could write about our ordinary people in the way Chekhov would have done. But I’ve never managed to reach that level of sobriety and fellow feeling. I think for each writer, maybe each person, the world looks a bit like a projection of himself or herself.
AO: How do African stories reflect societal changes, especially during moments of technological advancement?
IC: At the moment technology affects our means of expression more than it does our stories. The internet has changed African consciousness forever and yet, apart from text messages and zoom calls, its force hasn’t yet been registered in African fiction, I would say. Technology is often seen as an outside intrusion (Gandhi, for example, didn’t like to take the train because it did violence to the step-by-step process of travel, he rejected almost every kind of machine, but he did make an exception for the Singer Sewing Machine.) Having said that, Afro-futurist writing is using the unevenness of the future in Africa to make extraordinary imaginative leaps. Look at Tade Thompson’s great Lagos novel Rosewater, for example.
AO: How do major national projects like the Dabaa project in Egypt affect the personal lives of individuals and shape the dreams of readers in the region?
IC: I don’t know. Perhaps only in our sense that we are a place where amazing things are possible. But I know that the turnaround in our own energy system in South Africa has given us hope for the future for the first time in a generation. (Our economy stopped growing in 2007 with the start of our energy crisis and has only begun again this year to expand.) So I can guess that effective energy provision from Dabaa offers a great deal of confidence in the Egyptian future, as well as a sense that the front edge of economic development is not reserved for countries across the ocean but right here at home.
AO: In what ways does literature challenge or reinforce narratives surrounding such national projects? How can literature deepen our understanding of complex technologies like nuclear energy?
IC: Literature tends to engage with major national projects in subtle and indirect ways. More often than not, such projects do not appear at the center of stories; instead, they become part of the background awareness against which the next generation of narratives unfolds. They shape the conditions of life, work, mobility, expectation, without necessarily demanding constant attention. The rare exceptions come from highly programmatic traditions, such as socialist realism, where large projects were deliberately placed at the forefront of storytelling, as in Gladkov’s Cement.
Writers, however, tend to become most acutely aware of technology when it fails rather than when it functions smoothly. In South Africa, for example, energy insecurity since 2007 has become inescapably woven into everyday life and, as a result, into cultural consciousness. Power cuts, uncertainty, and interruption force technology into narrative visibility. When systems work reliably, they recede into the background; when they break down, they demand explanation, emotion, and meaning.
This is where literature deepens our understanding of complex technologies, such as nuclear energy by the way. Not by explaining how such systems work but through storytelling which moves beyond abstract debates and toward emotional comprehension. In this sense, literature does not simply reinforce or challenge narratives around national projects; it humanizes them, allowing readers to feel what technological progress means in everyday life.
AO: Can you discuss the International Literary Award “Future Past “and how it reflects Africa's aspirations and visions for the future?
IC: I found it a fascinating award particularly by its global reach and its interest in telling optimistic stories about the future. My father was a quite well-known medical researcher (he got into trouble with the South African government in the year 2000 for insisting that HIV causes AIDS. Despite his left-wing beliefs, he always saw science as humanity’s and Africa’s real cause for hope. And despite all the skepticism of science and technology we’ve learned in recent decades, I hold the same belief and I am encouraged that there’s an award that supports it. Our continent is poor enough that we need many scientific and technical developments.
The International Literary Award “Future Past” is a global science fiction award established by the ATOM Foundation with the support of Rosatom to identify and promote new literary voices that explore technological optimism and positive visions of the future, where science and progress serve humanity.
At a time when science fiction has often shifted toward dystopian and apocalyptic narratives, Future Past seeks to restore the genre’s original power, to imagine worlds shaped by human creativity, ethical responsibility, and scientific achievement. The award brings together writers from diverse cultural and geographical backgrounds who share a common focus: not on technology as spectacle, but on the human, ethical, and emotional dimensions of progress, and on the search for harmony between technological development and humanity.
The first edition of the competition 2025, has attracted strong international interest, with more than 2,400 submissions from authors across Russia, Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, and China, and 27 finalists selected by an international jury. With a total prize fund of 5 million rubles, the award recognizes excellence across several categories, including Best Story, Best Story in a Foreign Language, and Best Story for Children and Teenagers.
Conceived as a unique platform at the intersection of scientific thought, literary creativity, and global dialogue, Future Past reflects the belief that science fiction does more than entertain—it provides direction, raises ethical questions, and helps society imagine constructive futures. By creating positive prototypes of tomorrow, the award aims to inspire both readers and a new generation of scientists, engineers, and thinkers to shape a future, where technology advances in service of people and society.
AO: In your view, how is Africa’s future being shaped as a science fiction narrative, and what role do writers play in crafting this story?
IC: It’s only been true for a decade or a little more that Africa has been seen as a legitimate site for the future. Science fiction always allows us to look at the present with greater freedom and flexibility; and it's “what if” perspective and love of experiment and transformation are perhaps vital mental qualities we require for our new birth in this century.
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