Egypt's writers at forefront of a new cultural republic "of sorts"

We're pretty fascinated with this "Letter from Cairo," which Ron Silliman also pointed to today. In a piece called "What Do Egypt's Writers Do Now?" Negar Azimi parallels Egypt's current post-revolution identity crisis to a 1952 coming-of-age novel by Waguih Ghali’s called Beer in the Snooker Club, noting that it's quite like Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. The shifts in perception have much to do with the part played by the youth. Intellectuals originally felt that "...the youth were superficial. I realized I didn’t understand this generation. I’m rethinking my entire novel.” Azimi also writes:

Under Mubarak, the Egyptian literary scene, long the center of the Arab cultural universe, floundered. While the state remained the primary patron of Egyptian literature, absorbing and co-opting anyone it possibly could, many authors escaped prickly Egyptian censors by publishing their books in more lenient Lebanon. Meanwhile, plush literary foundations and glittering prizes popped up in the much wealthier gulf countries. Still, there were pockets of activity. In the late 1990s, a former journalist named Mohamed Hashem founded Merit, a publisher credited with nurturing a new Egyptian avant-garde. Merit published Alaa al-Aswany, the dentist turned literary star whose “Yacoubian Building” captured the jaded grandeur of downtown Cairo. It also put out Ahmed Alaidy, whose stories of youthful mall culture used a vernacular Arabic — complete with text messages — that challenged the high orthodoxy of classical Arabic, and Khaled al-Berry, who skillfully narrated his experiences as a teenage jihadist in “Life Is More Beautiful Than Paradise.”

Seven months after Mubarak’s fall, Hashem, a wry, wiry chain-smoker, can be found in his office — some 500 yards from Tahrir Square — presiding over an improvised literary salon from an unassuming swivel-chair throne. During the revolution, his dusty, moth-eaten offices functioned as a refueling station for legions of activists. When I visited him one evening at the end of July, the smoky room slowly filled with members of the Egyptian literati, including Hamdi Abu Golail, a writer who often addresses his vexed relationship with his Bedouin heritage, and Magdy el-Shafei, a graphic novelist who in 2008 wrote “Metro,” a tale of two young men who, driven to desperation, rob a bank. (“Metro,” as it happens, was banned under Mubarak for indecency. Today, Arabic and English editions are forthcoming.) “You have millions of witnesses to this revolution,” Hashem told his guests that evening. “Each one is a potential new writer.” Hashem, for his part, has plans to publish an anthology of impressions of the revolution, many by amateur writers. “This has changed our young people.”

The piece goes on to describe the changing culture, from street bookshops to state publishing. "If Mubarak’s Egypt sanctioned an anodyne version of culture — imagine millions of watercolor pyramids — writers and artists of all bents are slowly chipping away at that image as they struggle over the meaning and memory of the revolution," Azimi writes. Find the full piece here.