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SONALLAH IBRAHIM opinion, using the simplest and most precise wording. This is one of the things that is most critical for me, getting rid of what I like to call “verbal accumulation” or “verbal traps”. For example, there is a novel, by a friend of mine and its first sentence is: “This time, baptized in blood.” These words are empty. What is baptized in blood? All times are baptized in blood.There is no such distinction. And then there is nothing called time. Time is time. Did we pour blood on it? It’s a metaphorical expression, maybe poetic but it is not a true expression of the kind I prefer – it’s not realistic. I don’t like all these similes and verbal games; we don’t need them. They are nonsense, so we say. I always refer to an anecdote about Chekhov. He was visiting a school and asked the students to describe the colour of sugar. One student said it was the colour of clouds and another continued in the same vein. Chekhov responded saying that all this was strange talk; the colour of sugar is white.That is a true and precise description and it is aesthetic at the same time because “white” is a beautiful word which resonates in the memory and is clearly perceived. This is the kind of simplicity of expression which can be superior to any word game. Twentieth-century Anglophone poetry likewise avoids abstraction but it is true that Arabic poetry has a long history . . . Yes, and this is because of taboos. In the past, the poet transformed feelings and thought into obscure phrases in order to escape being questioned. He couldn’t speak directly about sex or about the dictator or the king, or about religion, so he resorted to other devices. Today, gradually, it has become possible to speak frankly and as a consequence, in my opinion, the position of poetry is undermined. Poetry gradually loses its strength because it becomes possible to express things directly and honestly in a way that poetry did indirectly. 48 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES

INTERVIEW BY C AMILO GOMEZ-RIVAS How do you understand colloquial poetry and its popularity? Of course, whenever poetry gets rid of its obscurity and verbal opacity, it becomes closer to people and has a bigger role to play. How would you describe the process of writing a novel and how long it takes? In the beginning, it took a long time because I wasn’t completely free to work. I was obliged to work other jobs for money so the novel Nijmat Aghustus took seven years. Zaat took seven years because I was doing other jobs and because the process was in a way incomplete. Now, a novel can take maybe a year because I am almost completely free to work on it full-time and because many of the technical problems have been solved. I have always been amazed by how a generation, or generations really, of creative individuals have “graduated” from the jails of Arab dictators. Books, often banned books, played a great role.You started writing after prison? “Whenever poetry gets rid of its obscurity and verbal opacity, it becomes closer to people and has a bigger role to play.” No, in prison. Art, literature, and writing are an act of rejection and resistance so it is very natural that such acts land people in prison. In my personal experience, I spent five and a half years in prison, two years during which access to books, pen, and paper was absolutely forbidden. The following three years, they put us in the deepest south, in the region of the oases, a desert region close to the border with Sudan.There were no books there, of course but after a short while, we were able to put together a significant library underground, a secret library. We got hold of books through a number of means, and our friends helped us. I used to read Le Figaro in the desert. It arrived from France, secretly, to people who would then send it on to us, so we were in contact with the world, through new books and through thought. There was another nice dimension to this, which was that there was no control on the kinds of books we got. Our friends BANIPAL 43 – SPRING 2012 49

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SONALLAH IBRAHIM

opinion, using the simplest and most precise wording. This is one of the things that is most critical for me, getting rid of what I like to call “verbal accumulation” or “verbal traps”. For example, there is a novel, by a friend of mine and its first sentence is: “This time, baptized in blood.” These words are empty. What is baptized in blood? All times are baptized in blood.There is no such distinction. And then there is nothing called time. Time is time. Did we pour blood on it? It’s a metaphorical expression, maybe poetic but it is not a true expression of the kind I prefer – it’s not realistic. I don’t like all these similes and verbal games; we don’t need them. They are nonsense, so we say. I always refer to an anecdote about Chekhov. He was visiting a school and asked the students to describe the colour of sugar. One student said it was the colour of clouds and another continued in the same vein. Chekhov responded saying that all this was strange talk; the colour of sugar is white.That is a true and precise description and it is aesthetic at the same time because “white” is a beautiful word which resonates in the memory and is clearly perceived. This is the kind of simplicity of expression which can be superior to any word game. Twentieth-century Anglophone poetry likewise avoids abstraction but it is true that Arabic poetry has a long history . . . Yes, and this is because of taboos. In the past, the poet transformed feelings and thought into obscure phrases in order to escape being questioned. He couldn’t speak directly about sex or about the dictator or the king, or about religion, so he resorted to other devices. Today, gradually, it has become possible to speak frankly and as a consequence, in my opinion, the position of poetry is undermined. Poetry gradually loses its strength because it becomes possible to express things directly and honestly in a way that poetry did indirectly.

48 BANIPAL 43 – CELEBRATING DENYS JOHNSON-DAVIES

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