Sweeping soft victories
Jihan Zaki, Al-Dibomasia Al-Thaqafia Bayn Al-Asl wa Al-Soura (Cultural Diplomacy from the Original to the Copy), Dar Al Maarif, 2022, pp289
In nine carefully structured chapters, the accomplished scholar, cultural diplomat and member of parliament Jihan Zaki has produced a book of immense relevance, packing an immense amount of information into a condensed space. Her history of cultural diplomacy just may be the first of its kind, and it summarises the history of the topic through the ages in an erudite and engaging way. She is qualified to write it too, having been the head of the Egyptian art academy in Rome when the January Revolution broke out in 2011, and played a vital role in helping to explain what was happening to her Italian hosts.
Despite its global outlook, Cultural Diplomacy from the Original to the Copy is written from a decidedly Egyptian standpoint, and Zaki progresses through the various stages of Egypt’s extremely long history. She starts with ancient Egypt, where Egyptian diplomacy started, moving onto the Ptolemaic, Roman and Islamic eras. She deals with the collapse of Egypt’s role after it became part of the Ottoman empire, building up to the dawn of modern diplomacy in the course of the culture shock of Bonaparte’s French Campaign of 1798-1801. It was this that led to the rise of Muhammad Ali Pasha in 1805 and the subsequent emergence of modern Egypt. Zaki also deals comprehensively with the use of soft power – which turns out to have been an indispensable buffer against all kinds of problems and obstacles – through the various regimes of modern Egypt both before and after the July Revolution of 1952.
The book benefits from not one but two introductions by the Secretary General of the Arab League Ahmad Abul-Ghait and PM Karim Abdel-Kerim Darwish, the head of the foreign relations committee in the People’s Assembley. Abul-Ghait takes the time to explain the concept of soft power as one of several elements contributing to a nation’s standing at any one time. This covers cultural heritage as well as ongoing creative endeavours. Darwish, for his part, focuses on cultural conflicts, the rise of extremism and xenophobia the world over, and the consequent necessity of the role of cultural alongside political diplomacy to facilitate international communication and cooperation among different peoples.
In the first chapter Zaki presents the work of a young statesman who in BC2247-2241 led an expedition south past the first cataract of the Nile and, through cultural exchange as much as political negotiations, established a connection with the people who lived there. The ancient Egyptians had a full code of protocol, which the book surveys, with Zaki spending time on sartorial traditions and their importance in private as much as public life, since any individual was seen as “the emissary of their house”. The book introduces us to ancient costume designers before moving onto the role that obelisks played in presenting the culture and civilisation of Egypt to the people of the countries to which they were taken by force or gifted.
The book comes into its own as it presents the incredible political, economic and military as well as diplomatic genius of Muhammad Ali, who initiated scholarly contact with the West and created a whole bureaucracy around dragomans like the Armenian Boghos Youssoufian (better known as Nubar Pasha) who in 1819 became the first foreign minister of Egypt. Modern Egyptian diplomacy developed fast under Khedive Ismail, when Egypt took part in the 1867 Exposition de Paris and the seeds of modern Cairo were planted. But Zaki doesn’t stop there, and it is by bringing the story of cultural diplomacy right into the present moment that her book manages to to stand out.
Reviewed by Nader Habib
Ahmed Abdel-Latif, Ossour Daniel fi Madinet Al-Kheyout (The Ages of Daniel in the Marionette City), Al-Ain Publishing House, 2022, pp279
In this dystopian novel, author Ahmed Abdel-Latif blends fantasy with reality, setting the action in a nameless city of threads populated by marionette dolls. The opening scene features dolls in the balconies observing the death of other dolls in the middle of the street, contrasting the innocence of those creatures with the brutality of real life. There are three versions of Daniel, the marionette that is shot, and one of them works at the archive where he reads about an older version of himself who was sexually abused by his teacher in the time before the flood…
Novelist Ahmad Abdulatif was born in Egypt in 1978. He is a journalist and translator from Spanish, which he studied in Madrid. His novels include Sanei Al-Mafatih (The Key Maker, 2010), which won the State Incentive Award, Allem Al-Mandal (The Clairvoyant, 2012), Ketab Al-Nahatt (The Book of the Sculptor, 2013), which won the Sawiris Cultural Award, Elias (2014) and Hessn Al-Torab (The Earthen Fortress, 2017), the latter nominated for the Arabic Booker in 2018.
Adel Esmat, Ayam Adeya (Ordinary Days), Al-Ain Publishing House, 2023, pp182
Belying the title of this collection of short stories, author Adel Esmat chooses very extraordinary moments to depict in these variously humorous and melancholy tales on themes such as nostalgia and loneliness. Esmat is able to give a photorealistic sense of his characters’ experiences, which in turn reflect social realities layered with meanings. Soumya, the heroine of one of the stories, spends her time chasing “the ghost of the days” as she attempts to keep a record of time passing, what happens and what it means. She sets the tone for the entire collection, which also tackles the themes of immortality, suicide and insanity.
Born in 1959 near Tanta, Adel Esmat studied philosophy at Ain Shams University, graduating in 1984. He published his debut novel Hages Al-Mawt (Death Premonition) in 1995 after a collection of short stories entitled Qusasat (Fragments, 2015). He has since published numerous novels, winning the American University in Cairo (AUC) Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Tales of Yusuf Tadros in 2016. Other books include Al-Wasaya (The Commandments), which was shortlisted for the Arabic Booker in 2019 and received the Sawiris Cultural Award, and Ayam Al-Nawafez Al-Zarqaa (The Days of the Blue Windows), which won the State Incentive Award in 2011.
Miral Al-Tahawy, Ayam Al-Shams Al-Moshreka (The Days of the Shining Sun), Al-Ain Publishing House, 2022, pp280
Miral Al-Tahawy begins and ends this novel with two suicides. The book opens with Gamal, a young man trapped between conflicting identities, killing himself. It ends with Mimi, an African girl who has survived a massacre in her country, following suit. Set in an imaginary former mining town on the southwestern border of the US – home to illegal immigrants and human traffickers – the action is bracketed by those two tragedies. All the characters are exploited immigrants with difficult stories behind them seeking the land of their dreams.
Born in 1968 in Al-Sharkia governorate, Miral Al-Tahawy is an Egyptian novelist whose works include Brooklyn Heights (2010), which she received the Naguib Mahfouz Medal and was shortlisted for the Arabic Booker in 2011, as well as the she received the State Incentive Award-winning Al-Badhengana Al-Zarqaa (The Blue Eggplant, 1998) and Al-Khabaa (The Hiding, 1995). She is currently a professor of Arabic literature at the University of Arizona.
Talal Faisal, Al-Ghaba wal Qaffas (The Forest and the Cage), Al-Shorouk Publishing House, 2022, pp156
This is the fourth book of fiction by the author, translator and psychiatrist Talal Faisal, and as usual it blends imaginative narrative with biography, in this case autobiography. The hero is a psychiatrist based between Egypt and Europe, and he recounts his journey with his patients: an eloquent sheikh, a literary critic searching for the truth, a young man obsessed with the novelist Khairy Shalaby and a depressed, conflicted monkey who can’t decide between the jungle and the cage. The hero finally decides he needs as much treatment as his patients.
The eight-chapter novel presents the voice of childhood stories, hidden sarcasm of the cultural scene told by the literary critic. Faisal is an Egyptian author born in 1985 his published a poetry collection previously and many translated publications and for his previous three novels were; Seriet Molei Bel Hawanem (Diaries of a High-Class Woman Maniac, 2012), Sorour (2013), an autobiography of the late controversial Egyptian poet and playwright Naguib Sorour blended with a fiction, the novel was awarded the Sawiris Literature Award in 2015 and Baligh (2016), that was nearly the same thing blending fiction with autobiography about the late life of talented musician Baligh Hamdi.
Nora Nagy, Sanawat Al-Gari fil Makan (The Years of Running in Place), Al-Shorouk Publishing House, 2022, pp265
Between a failed revolution and a pandemic, five artists attempt to move forward with live their lives and pursue their dreams. While Nora Nagy structures her new work of metafiction around the senses, the chapters of the book are each devoted to a different character: an audio-visual artist, a playwright and poet, a blogger, a woman writer, and another friend they lost during the revolution. The characters lose their senses, with the consequence that they hold onto their art tighter and tighter until a twist at the end reveals them for what they are: characters in a novel.
Nora Nagy is an Egyptian novelist and journalist who graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in 1987. She has published a number of novels: Pana (2014), Al-Gedar (The Wall, 2016), Banat Al-Basha (The Pasha’s Daughters, 2017), which was nominated for the Sawiris Cultural Award in 2018, and Attiaf Kamelia (Kamilia’s Shadows, 2019).
Haytham El-Wardany, Banat Awaa: Aan Al-Hayawanat Al-Nateqa fi Lahazat Al-Khatar (Hyenas: Of Speaking Animals at Moments of Danger), Al-Karma Publishing House, 2023, pp244
This unusual and unique book is an attempt to reassess the concept of fables in Arabic literature, turning them from a moral lesson giving voice to the voiceless to an aesthetic form. The animals in fables are those who were defeated, who do not get to write history. The writer draws on the canon, with fables from back to the heritage books of this genre, the books that founded the fables art like; Kalila and Demna and stories like “The Tiger and the Fox” and “The Lion and the Diver”, but he does so with the urgency and intensity of a sensibility firmly rooted in the present moment.
Born in Cairo in 1972, Haytham El-Wardany is a short story writer and essayist who spent many years in Germany. He is now based between Cairo and Berlin. His books include Helm Yaqaza (Day Dream, 2011), which received the Cairo International Book Fair Prize in 2012, Kayf Takhtafy (How to Disappear, 2013) and Kitab Al-Noum (The Book of Sleep, 2017). His latest work was a collection of short stories, Ma La Yomken Eslaho (Irreparable, 2020).
Reviewed by Soha Hesham
* A version of this article appears in print in the 16 March, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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