Ahdaf Soueif (1950-present)

Post date: Dec 24, 2011 4:14:30 PM

In November 2008, at a conference in Bahrain, the acclaimed British Egyptian novelist, Ahdaf Soueif, stated that her novels are not an attempt to create a better image of Arab culture, but a real one. Soueif also pointed to the practices of the Western media that market a narrow view of Arab culture based on certain practices that the majority of Arabs already disapprove of. Soueif talks about her experience in England, explaining, "When you tell a British that as early as the 1950's, Egyptian cinema produced a movie called Al Bostagi condemning honor killings, they won't hear it. They will still point to you and say, your culture is a culture of honor killings." Such a perspective is prevalent in Western societies as a result of the media selecting one aspect of culture, already widely disapproved of in Arab culture, and framing it as representative of the Arab society and its morals. According to Soueif, Arabs in the diaspora have to face such biased discrimination of their civilization.

In speaking about Map of Love, she observes that had she not been an Arab or an Egyptian living abroad she probably would not have written it. Map of Love tells the story of Anna, a widowed British aristocrat on a visit to Egypt, who falls in love with and ends up marrying Sharif, an Egyptian lawyer fighting the British occupiers of the land. The story is told nearly a century later through letters that fall into the hands of their descendants, reunited by fate two generations later. One granddaughter, Amal, is Egyptian, while the other, Isabel, is an American.

At the heart of it, Map of Love is a novel about understanding the other's culture. Isma'il Sabri, the character of an Egyptian poet, discusses with Sharif how Sharif must speak with Anna, his wife, in neither one of their native languages, but in French; the one language they are both proficient in. Ismail says to Sharif, "[...] perhaps that is better. You make more effort, you make sure you understand – and are understood. Sometimes I think, because we use the same words, we assume we mean the same things." This scene quells the concerns of Sharif that a foreign language might disrupt the life of the couple. In essence, Soueif is promoting, through this character of a poet, that language is only a means to understand the other. The only concern in this case should be for the clarity of the communication, and not for the language being used.

Anna's character plays a key role in criticizing the British occupiers' misunderstanding of Arab culture. For example, she writes in her diary about Lord Cromer and his troops with dismay in their haughty attitude. Anna is eventually cut off from them by her decision to marry Sharif, a marriage that was strongly disapproved of by the British Agency in Cairo. Anna is able to see how the British have a very distorted image of Egyptians and attributes it to their distance from Egyptian society. Unlike English society, says Anna, Egyptian society lies behind closed doors, and her friends at the British Agency are left with little access to it. Anna writes, "[...] English Society displays itself in public, so the stranger, even with no entrance to it, knows it is there. Here, I have come to see, Society exists behind closed doors – but it is no less Society for that." At the end of the aforementioned passage, Anna declares that she has resolved to learn Arabic. As it is "behind closed doors," the particularity of Arab culture is such that one cannot fully appreciate its parameters without close contact with its members. In that sense, it is deemed alive in the thoughts, dialogue, lifestyle and everyday traditions of its members. In fact, Soueif has succeeded in revealing what lies behind closed doors by basing her novel entirely on alternations between the inner thoughts of her characters and the dialogues between them.

Once again, Soueif stresses the particularity of Arab Egyptian culture in Anna's declaration that she carries more appreciation for the intricate interiors of domestic life in Sinai than for the paintings of Sinai's exterior landscape. She explains, "[...] a painting would do justice only to that spot it depicted, and the viewer would be mistaken in thinking that now he had an idea of the whole of Sinai." Furthermore, she writes to her closest friend back in England, Sir Charles, professing her recent political views:

"I have started to believe that what we are doing is denying that Egyptians have a 'consciousness of themselves', and that by doing so we settle any qualms of consciousness as to our right to be here. So long as we believe that they are like pets or small children, we can remain here to 'guide them' and help them 'develop.' But if we see that they are as fully conscious of themselves and their place in the world as we are, why then the honorable thing is to pack up and go."

Soueif's literary novel, Map of Love was hailed by The London Review of Books as, "Half-romance and half a gently nationalist defense of Egypt."