A literary tradition begins at home
Last Updated: November 16. 2008 7:43PM UAE / GMT Send to friend
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Literary culture has suffered in the Arab world since the days when libraries at Cordoba, Cairo and Tripoli were intellectual lights for all mankind. It was Arabs who inspired a literary tradition in the West to thrive by improving Chinese methods of paper production, and it was Arabs who preserved many of the great works of classical antiquity. Sadly, this great literary tradition has been diminished.
The Emirates Foundation has launched the International Prize for Arabic Fiction as a way for Arab writers and Arab literature to gain exposure. But as The National on Saturday reported, most of the 16 titles nominated for the award cannot be found in Abu Dhabi bookshops.
The lack of a vibrant literary culture here is striking because the region is world-renowned for its tradition of storytelling. Tales and myths were interwoven into the fabric of Bedouin life, passing down the society’s traditions, principles and heroes through the generations. As society has decamped from its Bedouin roots, a literary tradition has not emerged that can inscribe and guard these tales for posterity.
Some of the seminal works of Western literature, notably Boccaccio’s Decameron and Chaucer’s Canturbury Tales, were developed from oral fables subsequently written down in what were, at the time, vulgar dialects. It was these works that helped to bring Western literature out of the dark ages. But Boccaccio and Chaucer did not have to compete with television, which can too often dictate whose stories are important to tell, how they should be told and what values a society should celebrate. And many parents are often complicit in allowing television to usurp these important roles.
Literary tradition does not start in university classes: it begins with a culture of reading that is first cultivated in the home. One of the most important things schools can do in reforming education – and engaging parents in the process – is to have parents read to and with their children.
Naguib Mafouz, the first Arab winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, explained that his writing career began with simple stories that he wrote for his family as a boy. Before he died Mafouz said: “If the urge to write should ever leave me, I want that day to be my last.” But the urge to write and read great literature is not just an individual need. It must also be collective. No society that wishes to thrive can forget this.
http://thenational.ae/article/20081116/OPINION/654 248331/1033?template=opinion
