SHARJAH — The first day of discussions at the 37th edition of the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF 2018) included a unique panel, ‘Magic and Writing’ shed light on the challenges and solutions to educate the Arab youth to enhance the reading culture and to gear them towards creating content in the rare genre of horror and magic.
“I was a terrified child and I am still scared of going to the bathroom at night. But I would still say try to make your child scared of some things that would fan his imagination,” said Ahmed Murad, an Egyptian author and screenwriter of fiction and non-fiction.
“sometimes cinema gives life to a book that people otherwise may not read because they are not fond of reading,” said Murad referring to his mystery novel Blue Elephant which was later made into a film.
“There are many fears, these fears should be written down on a paper to find the writer within us,” he added.
He admitted that people like the idea of fear but then it differs from one person to the other. The panellists admitted that the new technology children’s games, YouTube videos also often instill fear in children. But that kind of fear does not motivate you to write.
Being a good writer entails extensive research was a consensus. But the lack of Science fiction writers or even ghostwriters was not attributed to a lack of talent. Instead, the session highlighted the difficulties in writing a science fiction novel. Also, an emphasis on other categories of novels that attract recognition and awards was seen as a major reason for writers steering away from this genre.
Reinstating the need to ‘diversify’ from political, social and romantic novels, Ussama Al Mussalam a writer from Saudi Arabia talked about the difficulties of motivating people to write for this genre.
However, the panellists also concurred on how the use of fighter jets like F-1 and F-2 in the World wars was attributed by Germans to Sci-fi novels. Mussalam also said, “Ghosts do not exist in the Arab culture as we don’t believe in the reincarnation of Spirits. We believe in genies, this could also act as a possible deterrent for the underdevelopment of this genre in the Middle East. The little work that we have seen in horror or ghostwriting is because many people have westernized their local culture.”
“Hardly any scientific imagination seems to be taking shape in this region. We talk about going to planet Mars, but we need to introduce incentives and prizes for the genre of horror literature. Often big names in the Arab region don’t accept Sci-fi as a genre very well,”
Finally, the closing remarks of the session emphasised on the fact that the beauty of literature lies in putting imagination into form. Additionally, the focus was to nurture a reading environment that’ll encourage the younger generation to be able to generate better content.
