“This is not a crackdown on literature but it is a crackdown on everything ... ” — Ahdaf Soueif

To observe young readers coming up to Egyptian-British writer Ahdaf Soueif to gush over her novels, and clicking selfies with her, was a pleasantly surprising sight at the LLF. She is one of the leading writers and political commentators of the Arab world and had much to say about the crackdown on artistic freedom under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s regime in Egypt, and whether criticism over prizes for Arabic fiction as being agenda-driven is justified when Books & Authors interviewed her at the LLF.

Do you think fiction helps in making sense of political upheaval?

That is probably the question that I am trying to deal with now. I have not written fiction for 16 years and I have been writing about politics and about the intersection of culture with politics in my essays. Now I feel I need to engage with what is happening in fiction. I don’t know if I can do it and I don’t know how useful it is but I think there is something that I must try under the circumstances that we live in.

When you think of War and Peace that was exactly what Tolstoy was trying to do. He was trying to make sense of politics in fiction. It is an endeavour that writers of fiction who are engaged in politics find that they have to try.

What are your observations about the depiction of uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa in Arabic fiction? Or is it still too early to comment on it because everybody is still trying to make sense of what is happening ...

Since the revolution there is an outpouring and an increased energy in the production of certain forms of art. This is because certain forms are able to respond quickly to huge, emotional events that have massive impact. For instance, poetry and music have responded. Graffiti art has developed so much, especially from 2011 to 2014.

Fiction is different and I don’t really know why. Perhaps because events have to be processed in a certain way. My experience has been that what I get are strong images but to get a space, whether physical or internal, and do a sustained piece of work that transmutes into fiction, I haven’t been able to do it yet. Poetry also has to process events in a certain way but poems are shorter. There was this poet nobody had heard of called Mostafa Ebrahim and he came out with a small volume of poetry called Manifesto. When you read it you realised that people had been quoting bits from this text for months. His work had permeated the public.

We have seen the essay maturing enormously in the last five years. Many are writing blogs, news and opinion pieces for websites.

Do you think enough is being done for Arabic literature to have an international audience?

The problem is with translation. People have, with a lot of goodwill, set up organisations to help translate Arabic literature into English.

Until we have [people] — and we are very close to having a generation of people who are genuinely bilingual, bi-cultural and talented, and who are good literary practitioners and are interested in translations — that will do for Arabic literature like what happened with Spanish literature [translated] into English. It takes one tremendously talented translator who translates 10 texts and that opens the way.

There was a recent news report that Egypt has jailed author Ahmed Naji for writing a novel that allegedly “violates public modesty” and has also imposed a heavy fine on Tarik el-Taher, editor of the magazine Akhbar al-Adab, for publishing excerpts of the novel. There is a crackdown on artistic freedom in Egypt, would you like to talk about that?

There is an attempt to suppress any kind of creativity. And Ahmed Naji is part of that. He wrote a graphic novel which had a lot of appeal. This was about two years ago. Suddenly, a few months ago, someone brought a suit against him. This was based on an article that a critic had written about Naji’s work in a literary magazine and had included extracts from the work. The primary court had found him innocent but the prosecution had appealed against the decision and he was found guilty.

It is completely ridiculous. And, of course, everybody is going to fight it. This is not a crackdown on literature but it is a crackdown on everything. Shortly before, there was an administrative order to close down El Nadeem centre which is a rehabilitation centre for victims of violence. It is one of the most respected NGOs in Egypt. It has treated victims of police torture and not just from Egypt but from other Arab countries over the last 20 years. But El Nadeem has hit back by suing the ministry of health and the interior ministry.

Anything that empowers people, anything that reminds people of their sense of agency, anything that tries to heal people, they [the government] don’t want it. It is a very serious [situation]. There is an online petition for Naji by Change.org and I appeal to the people to sign it.

What do you make of prizes that are being given for Arabic fiction? You are a part of Ipaf [International Prize for Arabic Fiction] but there is also the Cultural Circle Prize for Arabic Short Story based in Kuwait, and then there is the Qatari-sponsored Katara Prize for Arabic Novel. There is criticism that these awards are agenda driven.

I know for a fact that Ipaf is not agenda-driven. I have been on their board of trustees for years. We have complete autonomy. And I suspect if there is any agenda driving other awards then it is just to promote the country as forward-thinking. It is nothing more than that.

Look, people have talked about how the Booker has made novelists write Booker-type novels. Well, maybe so. I don’t find anything sinister in it. In fact the more these kind of things [awards] open, there is publicity around the awards, the more lively the cultural scene becomes.

How has the Palestine Festival of Literature, which you started, evolved over the years?

My son Omar Robert Hamilton has more or less taken over the festival. It has a much younger feel now. It brings a lot more Palestinian artists with visiting artists. And it travels to different cities. The authors arrive in Amman, Jordan and we take them across the bridge, through the checkpoints for the Palestinians and travel on roads for the Palestinians.

So everyone experiences the closures and blockades and sees the settlements. Everyone returns with a heightened consciousness of what is happening there. At the same time it helps Palestinians to carry on their engagement with the outside world which they are very keen to do.