Emancipation
Amira El-Sherbiny
Interlocutor: Hilda Moamen
“Emancipation” a novel
worth Reviewing!
Trip in
depth of humans and the voice of politics, a trip with a writer loves
everything that is real. Make an existence of each meaning and make an
antagonism to its existence... To make the road as a fate, and the hope as
reality, that no life without it.
Amira
El-Sherbiny and her novel “Emancipation”.
Tell us
about yourself.
I graduated
from the university with a degree in pharmacy in 2004. Years later I worked in
marketing and publicity, and I liked it very much as I felt publicity is
related to creativity which is somehow similar to writing, because in writing
we are marketing ideas and we try to reach the reader and present the idea in a
template which the reader can accept. That is why I felt more comfortable in
marketing than pharmacy.
What is
the story behind your two pen names Farida and Amira?
The name Farida
was known through blogging. We don’t choose our birth name, so I have chosen
another name, however I like name Amira. My pen name Farida was the name I used
for writing for a while and it represented the writer.
How did
you get the novel’s main idea?
When we had a
revolution in Egypt it was unexpected, and if anyone claimed prior to the
revolution that one day people would stand at Tahrir Square and demand that the
president step down, no one would believe that. After the revolution succeeded,
I noticed that so many youth are going through a phase of skepticism as so many
questions were asked without answers, by this time all the bad impacts of the
past regime started to be shown obviously. The main one in my opinion is doubt
the individual ability; it is the primary way for the dictator to make people
doubt their abilities in order to be able to control their lives in both direct
and indirect ways.
Unfortunately
we don’t have enough faith in ourselves and that is how I got the main idea of
the novel and I preferred to present it in a simple way not as a political
speech, so I focused on a common factor between most of my generation which is
the instability in personal relationships caused by doubt.
“The novel that was accepted at Booker prize.”
Why did
you make the female main character the narrator?
I was trying
to show the reader the feelings of confusion, floundering, and doubt, and their
effect on the female main character. By making the main character the narrator,
I’m able to present these feelings to the reader through her inner conversations.
Why are the names of both the main male and
female characters not mentioned?
I wanted to
allow each reader to find himself in the novel, so it is not only a story of
two particular people but also can be a reflection of self for any reader.
Are the
novel’s characters based on true ones?
I compare
writing to weaving, as if there are threads of reality, threads of your own
self, and threads of imagination, and by the time you’ve finished weaving, it
is difficult to determine the origin of each thread in the final textile. Thus
we have to accept the writing work the way it is and as long as you found
yourself by reading the novel then it has bases of reality.
What do
you think of emigration out of the country?
The sentence
from the novel that was in my mind while I was writing is “The woman is like
the land and the man is like the dowel and immigration is the fate of the
weakened”.
People in any
country with bad circumstances tend to leave the country, but if we all lose
hope and faith who would stay to fix the country? That is what the novel was
written for as people believe they are weaker than the surroundings, but if
they believe in their abilities enough to change, they will be able to do so. The
real example in history is Mahatma Gandhi who didn’t leave his country to
change it, but believed in himself and the strength of his ideas and target.
“Hala” is
a character in the novel who decided to travel and marry a non-Muslim man, why
did you show such figure?
She
represents a character that already exists in our society, as many girls are
judged by their previous experiences and many guys experienced a failure in
their relationships but in a different way.
Sometimes
the writer shows the extremist as a way of alerting society, however I showed
“Hala’s” story in a neutral way and gave the reader the freedom of decision
about it.
The end
of the novel is full of questions, and you’ve written “the answers are just
other tales.”Why is that?
I like the
ending that raises questions. As in life, from my personal prospective, each
end means a new start. The novel has a symbolic side as the main male character
can represent the man that can’t be a leader in Egypt, while the woman
represents the country.
Last year, when
the novel was published, Egypt’s future was still uncertain, so how could I
write a certain end for characters that suffer from skepticism and confusion?
But still I gave hope by saying that each end means a new start.
What did
you learn from “Emancipation”?
Regarding
the writing, whenever I read part of the novel that I don't like or someone critiques
for me, it is considered a process of learning in order to improve my writing
technique. Regarding my personal life, I learned that I have to believe in myself
and when I wrote that writers teach themselves through writing for others I was
referring to myself as well. And I moved forward in my technique during the
time of writing “Emancipation”.
How did
you feel when you learned about the submission of your novel to Booker prize?
I was in the
United States of America at the time and I got a call from a journalist from
Egypt to congratulate me, I asked her “For what?” When she told about the
submission I was thrilled because it is such an honor to have one’s first novel
accepted for submission for the Booker.
From the
novel:
“We as
human beings have a limited perspective as we see Josef the prisoner and don’t
listen to his logic, and we see the broken sculptures of gods and don’t listen
to Ibrahim’s question, and we see Moses who killed and was expelled and don’t
listen to his call”
Tell us
about this paragraph:
The one’s
ego and vanity are always barriers between him and two things, one is to learn
and the other is to admit his own mistakes in order not to repeat them. And the
first defensive way upon advising is to neglect the advice and criticize the
advisor!
I am
affected by the holy Quran and God mentioned in the Quran the prophets’ stories
and also the prophets’ mistakes that they repented later. The point behind that
is to know that human beings can make mistakes and have flaws.
When the
prophets were calling people, people used to assault them as a way of
rejection.
Tell us
about your next book, will it be a novel?
My next book
will not be a novel; I am currently working on a book about my travel
experiences I will try to offer it in a unique way depending on my personal
prospective, and I hope it will be a good book.
I will
mention certain words and ask that you respond with what the word represents to
you:
Happiness Contentment
Love Life itself
Betrayal Weakness
Country Loyalty
Faith Required for inner peace
Doubt Curse
Fear A must, no one has no fears at all
Acceptance Respect
Emancipation Constant effort of the self in order to be released
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