Creative Nonfiction and Social Resistance in 21st-century Egypt

It is difficult to ignore the peculiarity of an Egyptian dentist turned novelist living as a political exile in the United States. Dr Alaa El-Aswany, in his acclaimed novel The Yakoubian Building, touched on sensitive issues in Egyptian society, some of them acknowledged and many ignored. It might have been his focus on religious fundamentalism and the rise of Al-Qaeda that attracted Western readers to his novel, but it was the blatant references to public figures that resulted in his rise as a political activist amongst his fellow Egyptians. The fact that the building does exist, where he practiced his profession, lent further credibility to his work. The political and geopolitical issues discussed in his book outshone the forbidden sexual references. Furthermore, Islamic nations and Egyptian society struggle with discussing sexuality. Dr El-Aswany presented his book as fiction, but it’s inarguably creative nonfiction. His reasons are self-evident in light of his current political predicament.

One can’t speak of chronicling Egypt and specifically Cairo without mentioning the Nobel Laureate ‘Naguib Mahfouz’. The influence of the great master on Egyptian writers overall and on El-Aswany is evident in the latter’s attempt to follow Mahfouz in his effort to dissect the society, and yet Mahfouz remains in Egyptian consciousness as a novelist and not as a political activist - the attempt on his life notwithstanding. Children of the Alley (Welad Haretna in Arabic), published in 1959, is an isolated case. Despite the allegorical form of the book, the Biblical references he used to weave a fictional multigenerational saga offended many. The mere notion of implying the death of Gebelawi, God, and the replacement of monotheistic prophets by science was too progressive for the time. In 1994, almost 35 years following the publication, the 82-year-old man was the victim of a failed assassination attempt. This, however, was not politically motivated.

Hosam Aboul-Ela, in his article “The Writer Becomes Text: Naguib Mahfouz And State Nationalism in Egypt’ argues that the apolitical stance of Mahfouz was perceived rather than actual. Aboul-Ela builds an elaborate narrative drawing on social, political, and globalization discourse to suggest that Mahfouz did, in fact, hold political views and that Gebelawi was a reference to Nasser, and that’s why the latter banned the novel from publication in Egypt. I would here invoke the reputation of Nasser’s oppression and iron-fisted rule to counter this argument. Nasser was never the leader who shied away from eradicating any voice of dissent. His decision to ban the novel from Egypt was more of a balancing act to portray an image of moderation on the religious front as he suppressed the popular Muslim Brotherhood. On that front, Mahfouz did have his run-ins with the religious establishment in Egypt. Specifically with Al Azhar, an organization that aligned itself with whatever regime was in place rather than being an independent theological voice. 

Aboul-Ela rightfully stated that Mahfouz never spent a single day in jail as most opposition writers did and do in Egypt, nor did he ascend the bureaucratic ladder like many Egyptian intellectuals. This not only feeds directly into the general consensus that Mahfouz was a novelist and his text lacked the provocation typical of writing aimed at challenging a society’s narrative about itself but also sheds light on efforts to use and/or silence literary discourse. The body of work of Mahfouz is worthy of endless studies of postcolonial literature in Egypt, however, my desired point of research interest is focused on a much later time period, specifically the 21st century writers. This would diminish any potential noise of different historical interpretations and competing narratives on Egyptian identity, whether it be nationalistic or Nasserist Pan-Arabism.     

Fast forwarding into the last two decades, we find that El-Aswany is not an isolated case, and a novel is not the only form of literature that authors use as a vehicle to lend a truthful voice to society. Dr Youssef Ziedan, a notable Islamic historian and scholar from Egypt, created a controversy in his historical fiction, Azazeel. In his bestseller, he tried to educate the reader about the history of Christianity in Egypt through the travels of a Coptic monk. If the accuracy of events or the historical record of the protagonist were not enough evidence that his book is a classical example of creative nonfiction, then his own admission in a leaked video during a private discussion lends weight to the argument. It was Dr Ziedan’s intention all along to challenge society’s narrative by revealing historical truths. Christianity is not the only challenged truth in Dr Zeidan’s work; he is arguably evenhanded in his approach. Both El-Aswany and Zeina wrote under the umbrella of fiction, I chose to describe it as disguised nonfiction. 

The burden of recounting a societal counter-narrative lay with nonfiction all along. On that front, there are many other references that come to mind when researching counter-narratives in oppressive societies. Authors that come to mind include Ayan Hirsi Ali, Hisham Matar, Khaled Hosseini and Hannah Shah to count a few. Two other authors with autobiographies published in 2023 are Avi Shlaim and Albert Ari. Both are of the Jewish faith and come from Iraq and Egypt, respectively. The two books can’t be compared as literary works given that Dr Shlaim is a noted professor and a published writer, while Mr Arie was a left-leaning political activist; however, their work shares a theme. Both authors touch on a forgotten fact: that Jews lived side by side with Muslims and Christians in the Arab world before the founding of Israel and the subsequent rise of the Wahhabist tide in the region. 

The stated examples used creative nonfiction, notably in memoirs, to provide a much-needed counter-narrative by exposing the truth about their personal experience. In this intellectual endeavour, they exposed aspects of their religiously oppressive culture - aspects that merit a close examination, however protected by culture, tradition and oppressive regimes. With the exception of Albert Arie, none of these authors wrote their books in their native tongue. This could be attributed to many pragmatic factors, but one can’t help but ask if adopting a second language as a vehicle to relay these experiences lent a degree of freedom to touch on problematic questions. Literature, in these instances, acted as a reliable alternative to reveal a society. 

These examples remain to be isolated cases, thanks to or due to their commercial success and/or popularity. None of these references would be applicable, however, since (with the exception of Albert Ari) all these books were written in English and were therefore not accessible to a vast majority of Egyptians. Many other examples fly below the radar and go unnoticed by autocratic regimes. This could be due to the craftsmanship of the writer and helped by the limited arm of censorship. Most media in Egypt suffers from the indiscriminate gaze of the Ministry of Media, which the military controls directly. The rise of other forms of media made books a less threatening medium for protest. In addition, the cumbersome exercise of reading an entire manuscript, coupled with the subtleties and long-winded tendencies of the Arabic language, makes effective censorship of creative non-fiction almost an impossibility. Until a publication becomes a popular bestseller, it remains the safest way to protest.    

In my personal experience writing Our Truth, I wanted to document the story of the disappearance and likely demise of my brother more than 33 years ago. I found myself engrossed in the folkloric aspect of oral storytelling. I was forced to retrace my family history almost 70 years prior to the disappearance of my brother. What started as a meditative exercise and a story to tell my infant son about his uncle, after whom he was named, ended up as a social study of Egyptian society through the lens of a multi-generational family trauma. And yet, the study lacked the academic research and literary tools to represent Egyptian society effectively. The same stories that were relayed by older members of the family were considered deeply offensive once it was put in written words. Furthermore, and however candid I tried to be, I needed to limit the extent of a tell-all story. 

My depiction of the Arab Spring and political events that followed this monumental point in recent Egyptian memory was deeply offensive to the sympathizers of the revolution. Critique, however masked, of the current regime and festering corruption dissuaded a reputable publisher from taking on the project. The feedback I received is the motivating factor to pursue creative writing, specifically as a profession. The creative portion of my PhD would be a disguised nonfiction, if I may use the term. The General’s Daughter is a novel that reveals the truth about the effects of decades-long military dictatorship on Egyptian society. A creative work where I would tell all that I was holding back when I wrote Our Truth.