Quote & Excerpt: Sahar Tawfiq

"She went to Tahrir Square, ascended the steps to the pedestrian bridge which encircled the vast roundabout, walked around it several times. She felt tired, and thought about sitting on the steps. She descended and walked to the corniche. The old man was sitting there, reading a book.

"She wished she could sit beside him and read with him. She longed for him to read to her in a calm and sympathetic voice, while she listened to him and gazed at the water, not saying a word.

"After a time he got to his feet. She walked behind him. He took the bus, and so did she. He got off at one of the bus stops on the route, and she got out behind him.  He crossed the square and turned off into a narrow street, then entered an area to which she had never been, one full of alleys, cul-de-sacs, and crowded, narrow streets. He went on, walking down one street, only to turn into another. Finally he came to an old house, its façade a faded yellow. Going down a few steps, he reached a doorway and went in. The interior was full of darkness.

"She gazed for a while at the dark entryway before turning to go back. She discovered she had forgotten the way she had come. She wandered through the small streets and alleys until she came out into the square.

"She took a deep breath, filling her lungs, and gazed at the vast sky and the light encompassing the square at midday.  She resumed walking, briskly now, smiling at everything and everybody.  She looked at her watch; it was almost time for her appointment with Said. She found that it wasn't even particularly important to her. She stopped in a crowded spot, shading her eyes from the sun. At that moment, as her watch ticked on at its regular pace, she tried to recall the features of the old man. She tried very hard but she could not."

--Copyright © 1991, 2011, Sahar Tawfiq (1951-), from "In Search of a Maze," in Stories by Egyptian Women: My Grandmother's Cactus, Introduced and translated by Marilyn Booth, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991, pp. 163-164. The story, titled "Al-Bahth 'an mataha," originally appeared in the author's short-story collection An tanhadira al-shams (Cairo: GEBO, 1985, pp. 59-65). All rights reserved.

“It’s the beginning": Egyptians Write Their Destiny

He's gone! As per the wishes of a majority of the Egyptian people, President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak today officially and fully vacated his office. An Egyptian military council is now (temporarily?) running the government, and though it unclear what will happen next, including with Omar Suleiman, the current vice president and former head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate (EGID), that country's CIA. But what is clear is that two and half weeks of sustained brave public protests by Egyptians, in Cairo, in Alexandria, in Suez, and other cities, and just a few weeks ago met with horrific violence by the government's supporters and agents, have resulted finally in Mubarak's ouster, after 30 years of dictatorship, with the wholehearted support, financial, political and military, of the United States and other Western nations. As I wrote in an earlier blogpost this year on the unfolding situation in Tunisia, the successful protesters there unleashed a political, social and discursive djinn that cannot be put back in the bottle. Mubarak's abrupt resignation today followed his defiance yesterday when, as protesters filled Cairo's Tahrir Square and Egyptians and international reporters expected him to step down, based in part on the military's public assurances, he announced on TV to widespread outrage that he wasn't going to bow to foreign pressure. But it was the military's hand, and the popular will, embodied by the millions of Egyptians of all backgrounds who refused to back down, that forced Mubarak out. (According to some unconfirmed reports, Egypt's federal legislature, dominated by Mubarak's party, has been dissolved.) Egyptians have been celebrating all day and, if the military keeps its promise, will continue to, no matter how messy and complicated the democracy that follows turns out to be, but people across northern Africa and the Middle East are now looking at their own dictator-despots and thinking perhaps their time is up as well. As for the dictator-despots, they also perhaps are considering that their longtime ally, the US, can just as easily cut them loose.  Perhaps we Americans will also take note and start refusing to stand by as our civil liberties are systematically and increasingly gutted; our hard-earned tax dollars end up in the financial casinos and underwrite the lavish lifestyles of corporate executives who think nothing of the workers of this country; war criminals walk the streets freely and give each other awards without the slightest fear of legal sanction; our Constitution continues to be gutted by people who believe that their wealth absolves them of the rule of law; and the executive, legislative and judicial branches work almost wholly on behalf of oligarchs and plutocrats, and thumbing their noses at the vast majority of us. May the people of Egypt continue to write their destiny with their own hands, and let us learn once again to do the same.

Ed Ou for The New York Times

Demonstrators in Cairo rejoiced Friday upon hearing that President Hosni Mubarak had been toppled after 18 days of protests against his government.

Encyclopedia Out + Jean Wyllys, Brazilian Congressman + Revolt Hits Egypt

A while back I mentioned that the journal Encyclopedia's second volume, F-K, would soon be out, and it is now on bookstands and available for order ($25).  I've flipped through a copy of this newest volume and am delighted to say that like the first one, it is a beautifully designed and produced journal, but it's also an inventive, intellectually provocative anthology and a substantial (and hefty, in terms of size and weight) book.

I'm also very pleased that my translations of two of Brazilian writer Jean Wyllys's microstories from his collection Aflitos (Fundação Casa Jorge Amado; Editora Globo, 2001), which won his native Bahia's Prêmio Copene de Cultura e Arte in 2001, appear in this volume. I began translating them in the middle of last decade, and about a year and a half ago completed a translation of the entire volume. I haven't yet found a publisher, but the experience of translating his very condensed, lyrical prose pieces, some of them closer to poetry than fiction, others nearer to horror in the brutal realities they depict, and all of which offer a fresh perspective on Brazilian and Bahian life, was instructive and creatively energizing.

I'm also glad to have undertaken this project translating Jean's work. As I've noted before, he was the first person to come out as gay on a Brazilian reality TV show--Big Brother 5, which he won in 2005--and after moving to Rio de Janeiro and returning to his roots as a journalist and professor for a few years, he recently ran on the Party of Socialism and Liberty (PSOL) ticket, representing a district in Rio, was elected in October and is now the first openly gay federal deputy (equivalent to a US Representative) to be seated in Brazil's lower house of Congress, the Chamber of Deputies.

I imagine he'll be a bit too busy to write more fiction anytime soon, but I hope he continues to do so, and I also hope his legislative and proposed political goals and career succeed, for him, his constituents and the Brazilian people.

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Not long ago I blogged about the revolt in Tunisia, which continues as I type this entry, and it was clear to me that if it could even partially succeed--and it has--its spirit would spread throughout other parts of the Middle East. And it has. The largest popular revolution appears to be unfolding in Egypt, where protesters comprising a sizable cross-section of that country's urban populace have staged sustained public protests against the unresponsive, dictatorial government of nonagenarian president-for-life Hosni Mubarak.  Economic stagnation, an authoritarian political systm and violent repression of dissidents have long created a volatile situation that has finally exploded, sparked in part by Tunisia's example, and it's unclear that Mubarak and the security forces will be able to turn back the clock.