4.2 Egypt

Sometimes Wisdom Possesses Me- Iman Mersal
Interview with Iman Mersal

Iman Mersal, part of Egypt′s 90s generation, is one of the most interesting voices in
contemporary Arabic poetry. Her work has been translated into more than a dozen
languages, with poems from her much-awaited ″Until I Give Up the Idea of Houses″
(2013) currently being rendered into English by Robyn Creswell. Interview by Marcia
Lynx Qualey.
You said in a Poetry Parnassus interview that you don′t really relate to protest poetry. Yet
some of your poetry could be read as protest, in a sense. Why particularly did you want to
distance yourself from protest poetry?
Iman Mersal: As a writer, it isn′t my intention to distance myself from any kind of poetry.
As a reader, I can speak about the poetry I can′t connect to. I grew up with grand narratives
about the nation, about the future, full of ideology. I was studying Adonis in my MA for
example and I would stay up late at night reading poetry that I could not relate to, despite its
beauty, its language and images. He′s a great poet, a prophet who is trying to change the
world by changing the Arabic language and culture, but he does not speak to me.
I was struggling with something else; the desire to understand myself, to deal with dark
moments in everyday life, with memory. I was interested in the complexity of my
relationship with my father, friendship, with authority in a very broad sense, not just religious
or political. I was discovering individuality and was searching for my own voice.
Who else did you grow up reading, other than Adonis?

Mersal: In general, poetry is the genre I read least. However, the Golden Age of Arabic
poetry was my main source of poetry from high school onwards. Modern Arab poets such as
Mahmoud Darwish, Amal Donqol and Salah Abdel Sabour among others.
I wrote an article last year about the Syrian poet Sania Saleh and I was just lamenting the fact
that I grew up thinking that there were no modern Arab female poets for me – until I read
Sania Saleh, just three years ago or so. And this makes you wonder: why such poetry was not
available to me as a young reader? I think if I′d read her early in my life, it would have been
fantastic.
How widely do you read now? Is it important to read "widely"?

Mersal: It′s not just important; it′s one of the greatest pleasures. We used to read translated
poetry as young readers. Even though some of the translations were quite bad, they had an
impact on us. We discovered the diversity of what we call poetry. Reading, for example,
Constantine Cavafy, W. B. Yeats, [Wisława] Szymborska, Emily Dickinson, Nicanor
Parra, [Anna] Akhmatova.
How do you get to know new voices now?

Mersal: I follow the Arabic poetry scene closely and enthusiastically. There are so many
excellent female poets at the moment who are worth reading. Lately, I′ve enjoyed reading
Aya Nabih, Asmaa Yassen and Malaka Badr, among so many others. As for non-Arabic
poetry, I connect with it through the English and Arabic translations and by participating in
international readings. You meet so many poets in life, but there are only a few that you
admire and feel in dialogue with.
With Lidija Dimkovska in Ljubljana Febraury 2013
For example, I met the Macedonian poet Lidija Dimkovska at the Rotterdam poetry festival
in 2003, then saw her in Ljubljana twice and we′ve since become friends. Other poets that I
met at such events and highly recommend are the Albanian Luljeta Lleshanaku whom I met
at Parnassus, London 2012, the Dominican Frank Baez and the Chilean Nadia Prado whom I
met in Nicaragua the same year. In Edmonton, where I live, there are some really good poets
such as Bert Almon and Shawna Lemay. It is always a gift to discover a fine poet or even a
fine poem.
Is there a literary scene you feel particularly close to?
Mersal: I was invited to Slovenia in 2007 for an independent poetry reading called Days of
Poetry and Wine. I was the only Arab poet there. They translated the participants′ work
before the event and published it in English, Slovenian and the original language, so I was
actually able to read the poets I was spending days with.
I felt that a window was opened. There are so many similarities in questions and images
between them and the Arabic poetry written since the 90s. You can imagine a poet in the
1990s living in post-Communist Romania and imagine me living in Cairo during the decline
of so many ideologies including Arab nationalism, the events of the Iraqi war and Palestinian
crises. We almost crossed the same threshold. I felt as if we are individuals who experienced
the same formative moments through their own, distinct cultures.
I′ve never seen you translate poetry. I′ve only seen you translate prose. Why is that?
Mersal: I am afraid to translate poetry. Maybe because it is a heavy responsibility. But I have
been questioning this fear lately and thinking that it might be silly.
Would you rather be translated by someone who is not a poet or non-poet?
Mersal: There is always anxiety in the act of translation,

carrying a text from one culture to another. Khaled Mattawa′s translation of my work, which
is the dearest one to my heart, was not free from this anxiety. There were moments when I
thought: he is a fantastic poet and a translator, will this mean having two voices struggling
inside my poems in English, mine and his? With a translator who is not a poet, I would have
different worries.
After a while, you have to give up guardianship over your poems, allowing them to migrate
to new languages and homes. You imagine that your voice is carried through the air to ears
far away from you; it is impossible to determine how your voice will reach the other side. It
may sound more elongated or softer than it really is; it might be grandly eloquent, as if you
are an elite native speaker. The translator who selects my poem and sits there struggling to
put it in his or her own language, has the right to rewrite it – as long as my accented voice
survives its journey to the destination.
Iman Mersal
Iman Mersal was born in 1966 in a small village in the Delta. A graduate of Mansura
University, she was co-editor from 1985 to 1988 of the independent feminist magazine Bint
al-Ard (Daughter of the Earth). Following her first book of poetry she switched to the avant-
garde genre called qasidat al-nathr (prose poem), aligning herself with the "new generation"
of poets who found the genre more suitable for describing the details of daily life. Her second
book, Mamarr Muètim Yasluh li Taèallum al-Raqs (A Dark Passageway is Suitable for
Learning to Dance), was selected as the best book of poetry in 1995 by polls conducted by a
number of Egyptian magazines and newspapers.
The poem ‘Sometimes Wisdom Possesses Me’ is taken from the collection These are not
Oranges My Love and is translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa.
Blind by Fatima Naoot
Summary: This poem is about how the poet was blind at first, but underwent surgery to
regain her eyesight. However, she tells the readers that reading doesn’t require eyes. What
she means is that a blind person and a normal person can still read the same books. By using
specific details and imagery, a blind person understands the text they’re are reading.
Analysis: Poem tells the reader how we don’t need eyes to read. When we read, the words
and context help the reader “see” the world.
Theme: Sadness - The author feels sad when she realized that there were no books when she
finally regained sight, and realized that all this time reading did not require eyes
Fatima Naoot (b. 1964) was born in Cairo, Egypt, trained as an engineer, and became a writer
after working as an architect for ten years. Naoot, who has published five books of poetry,
and whose prize-winning work has been translated into seven different languages, was
charged with “contempt of religion” in an Egyptian court in 2015 for a reference she made in
one of her poems.
The poem ‘Blind’ is translated to English by Kees Nijland.

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Sometimes Wisdom Possesses Me- Iman Mersal

Interview with Iman Mersal

Who else did you grow up reading, other than Adonis?

How widely do you read now? Is it important to read "widely"?

How do you get to know new voices now?

With Lidija Dimkovska in Ljubljana Febraury 2013

Would you rather be translated by someone who is not a poet or non-poet?

Mersal: There is always anxiety in the act of translation,

Blind by Fatima Naoot

The poem ‘Blind’ is translated to English by Kees Nijland.

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