The Egyptian storyteller and writer, Dr. Sherif Saleh, stressed that the writer should take sides with the meanings of tolerance, the values of human coexistence, respect for laws, justice and freedom, indicating that he respects the tone of irony in literature.Explaining that great literature is not devoid of that joking flash, pointing out that he loves everything that celebrates beauty, goodness and truth. Sherif Saleh is a journalist and a university professor of the Arabic language. He has published seventeen books ranging from story, novel, theater, criticism and literature. He participated in many cultural programs and won several awards, including: “Sawiris”, “Dubai Culture”, and “Sharjah Creativity”. His most important works of fiction: “An Egg on the Beach” in 2013 AD, “The Serpent’s Split” in 2014 AD, “The Sleeper’s Notebook” in 2015 AD, “Cities that Eat Theirself” in 2019 AD, and others. The statement had the following dialogue with him:
After seven collections of stories, what inspires you to write a short story?
A smell, a distant memory, a dream, an unknown image, a sentence I heard from behind a wall, and a painful situation. One day I lived through a storm that ended in a text, and I saw an elegant woman entering a church, so I turned it into a text, and dedicated the book “The Sleeping Notebook” to my dreams. But on the whole, I don’t write my story easily, no matter how easy it may seem. And I consider that seven totals in thirty years is too much. Because the story is not a fairy tale, but rather a fabrication of language, structure, existential dilemma, sarcasm, and fleeting situations, with an amazing intensity that does not tolerate monotony and “cliches.”
Your writing is humorous, and your sarcasm is deep and not fleeting. How did you get started?
Light humor is about throwing a joke, while sarcasm can be sharp and dark. There is a family inheritance from my father. Perhaps a general nature in us as Egyptians. We are a people who face life with a joke. I respect the tone of irony in literature. I do not think that great literature is devoid of this joking flash.
The bitterness of the joke, nowadays few are good at it in narration, do you think because of its difficulty, or because it needs a culture that dives into reality?
The joke is a “joyful irony”, which may result from a misunderstanding due to language, the contradiction of the article with the denominator, or an inappropriate person in a place that does not belong to him. It is like wearing two different colored socks, or a young man mistakenly going to a wedding for a bride who is not the one to whom he was tied. The “joyful irony” is at the heart of our being. However, not all creators have the ability to discover it. The issue has to do with how the writer sees existence, and the ways in which he expresses it. There are writers sitting at the writing desk in a suit, searching for a standard language that is so luxurious to me that I look at existence lightly and am drawn to its playful paradoxes and sit in front of the page to play with words and pictures.
What worries you, whether at the level of your creative work, or the reality of living?
What worries me most is “lack of grace” or “lack of mood.” Colleagues who write huge, thick-skinned novels every year devoid of mood. I do not have a specific definition of mood, but it is lacking in us as creators.. just as people are lacking in reality. My roots go back to a simple rural environment where I enjoyed watching the flow of the river, playing with fish, cats, dogs and mulberry trees.. I loved the calmness, greenery and slow pace.. There was too much time for us to do anything. Now there is no time left to taste anything. We chase illusions in virtual worlds.. and compete in well-designed writings that lack mood. There is speed, swarming, violence, anger, tension, depression, and a sense of lack of appreciation.
From journalism and writing in the media to your creative writing, how do you separate your work in all of these tracks?
Journalism is a job that I have been doing for more than a quarter of a century, and I rely on it to pay the bills of my life, and it is framed by deadlines and commitments. As for creative writing, it is a hobby that I enjoy in order to make my life pleasant and bearable. Maybe I’m writing a story, a novel, or a play. The important thing is that the text continues to motivate me to complete it, no matter how many “rehearsals” it takes. It happened that I was silent about writing for seven years, and in the last five years I have only published two books. I often find myself under pressure of time and commitments between my work and my hobby. There must be a weekly schedule for achievement, and a general framework for what I want to accomplish each year.
What are the dominant discourses that mean your concepts, in their different meanings?
Any writer is supposed to take sides with the meanings of tolerance and the values of human coexistence, respect for laws, justice, freedom, and human dignity, and be against violence, racism, environmental pollution, and ignorance. In one way or another, my books reflect those concepts. But the meaning that inhabits me more than others is love. I believe in the energy of love broadcast in the universe. Planting a tree is the energy of love.. A good word is an expression of love.. Tolerance and forgiveness is love.. Either a person adjusts his heart in the orbit of cosmic love, or he will find himself embroiled in a quagmire of hatred. I wish to write with love and live with love.
The personality of the writer is individual and human at the same time, so do you write for all the readers of the world? Or do you limit your writing to a specific party?
I do not write with my eyes on a specific reader. I do not consider anyone. I write an experience that touches me and my environment, as the writer is first and foremost the son of his own experience. But writing itself floats around the world with this interrelationship between the subjectivity of experience and its openness to the human common. All humanity shares the same dreams and pains, albeit to different degrees.
The number of writers in the world is increasing, as is the number of readers… What do you say about this growth?
I don’t feel comfortable. Abundance of everything vulgarizes it, and makes it lose its standard values. If there are more pearls, they will become plastic.. I am personally afraid of the large number of my books, and whenever I get close to book No. 20, I feel disturbed to publish all this. I don’t know how to stop. I think that the most sincere writers may be satisfied with one book. But we are writers and readers obsessed with consumerism. Publishing houses have increased, and the number of books has increased. Nevertheless, I look suspiciously at the “social media” companions when they put each month a sumptuous “cover stack” of what they have read. And I secretly say that this colleague will definitely become, by the end of the year, “Jean-Paul Sartre”!
Between the theater and the library, which one attracts Sherif Saleh to enter them? What about poetry in your life?
I love every place that celebrates beauty, goodness and truth. I go to the theater whenever I have time, especially since I obtained a doctorate in its criticism. I have my library in the palm of my hand. As for pure poetry, it is, like music, rare. I love it if I find it. Unfortunately, we have many poets, but the poetry itself is few.
What books influenced Sharif Saleh to become an author?
The most influential books on me are the ones I read as a boy and connected me to reading. This happened with the texts of Naguib Mahfouz, Youssef Idris, Abd al-Hakim Qasim, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Kazantzakis, John Fowles, al-Manfalouti, One Thousand and One Nights, Mu’allaqa Tarfa ibn al-Abd, and Taraif al-Jahiz.
