Syrian novelists co-author work documenting Syrian revolution
DAMASCUS, Syria (North Press) – An unusual project is being shaped as a group of Syrian novelists have decided to co-author a novel documenting the events of the “Syrian revolution” since its onset in 2011 up to 2016.
Every novelist will have his/her own point of view and will depend on the orally documented Syrian history covering this era.
Idea and queries
In exclusive interviews with sponsors, those leading the project, and a number of novelists taking part in writing the novel, George Kadar from Dawlaty organization that sponsors the work, told North Press, “Simply, the idea is a narration of the Syrian people, and the transformations they underwent in a war of which no body benefited but parts of the blooding struggle and war generals who participated in destroying the dreams of the Syrian people to freedom, dignity and salvation from an intelligence regime that spared neither country nor citizens. It made the country small prisons within a bigger one called Syria that was turned into war for power and control and did not serve but interests of countries seeking to attain strategic and political gains at the expense of the Syrian people.”
Malaz al-Zoubi, a co-author contributing to the novel, said that the idea was proper strange to him and it did not occur to him previously.
Foz al-Fares, a participant in the project, said that such kind of writing is not new. It had previously been occurred to authors whether in the West or in the Arab world.
“We often used to read many writers co-authoring a book. For example, a husband and his wife could co-author a novel,” she added.
Al-Fares told North Press that co-products are not modern ones. There are literary co-products in the Arab literature such as the ones appeared in the 14th century such as Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity.
Al-Fares noted to the novelistic products written in the Arab World collectively such as A World Without Maps which co-authored masterly by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra and Abdul Rahman Munif and The Bewitched Palace by the two greats; Taha Husain and Tawfiq al-Hakim.
“For me as a writer, I had several collective studies in addition to an ontology book focusing on female Syrian writers. The idea to work in a team is a plausible one. We had appeasing results,” she said.
“However, that could be different in writing novels, we know this. At the beginning of the project we had some fears coincided with a mass desire for adventure and to undergo this new experiment part of which embodies a challenge,” she added.
Al-Fares was not the sole in the team to have these fears expressed. Fears that sometimes imply suspicion. Suspicion to lead this experiment. The work to be done and appeasement followed.
However, the writer noted, “As we advance and with the passage of time such a suspicion vanishes and turns into a desire to succeed in line with zealous shown by the team.”
This zealousness was consolidated and promoted by repeated meetings with some Syrian critics and writers who had “distinctive experiments” in addition to regular meetings between the team and the supervisor editing the novel, George Kadar, according to al-Fares.
“Leniency and interaction in the team, discussions, talks, opinions and proposals made were useful and it contributed to finishing the first phase of work.”
Novelist technology
Kadar made it clear that the goal of the project was to convey the Syrian war from media to the wider literature, however, via a collective writing experiment featuring heroes who had various experiments and different technological devices varying according to experiments of writers.
“What connects all this is the joint Syrian events in the single experiments felt by eyewitnesses who let us know about the oral archive which was collected by the Dawlaty Foundation since 2016,” Kadar added.
He indicated that the work is “novelistic” because the experiences and events are interrelated and intermingled to a great extent and they are larger than a story or a scenario though it could be later be dramatized for its richness of figures and humanitarian experiences. These experiences are but common suffering of the Syrian people in a bitter struggle for salvation of their families.
From another hand, the Syrian novelist in the work was a main part of the work. However, he does depend on his imagination as in other novelistic works, but he depends on testimonies, where its narration makes a context which in motion produces painful experiences and hardships overcome by testimonies or impinged upon their lives forever and shadowed them, “That will be shown in the chapters of the novel,” according to Kadar.
The novelist participating in the project re-produced these testimonies from its recital reporting and singular shape into a more wider space; that is novel. For this it is neither a story nor a scenario. Of course, critics will find varying and different styles among writers, according to the author.
Kadar hopes the team succeed because varying styles could make the novel a strong one, or at least a daring start in initiating a novel with different narratives, heroes and technologies.
Kadar pointed out that it is a big challenge undergone by Syrian writers who voluntarily shared the zealous to had lead this experience. Also, suspicions on the success of such a work were shared by participants first.
However, undertaking the challenge to take the first experiment to the shore of success with all implied merits and demerits is the biggest incentive to have the voice of simple people heard, according to the writer.
From his part, Malaz al-Zoubi could not say the project will either succeed or fail, hoping the former.
He expressed his confidence that male and female participants eagerly worked and have abilities and capabilities that push it to succeed. The novelty of the idea in the collective participation in writing would help in pushing it succeed or at least to arouse curiosity to have the novel read and to explore the strange novelty as such.
Al-Fares said co-authoring needs a common thinking in the work, which exists in the work to be achieved. It is appearing in the war and the effects it caused over the past years to Syrians.
It may be difficult for two authors to converge on one obsession or on a creative idea, however, good relations among the team and their understanding of their creative skills and the others’ capabilities added to zealous and desire to make the work a success, and testing its effects and results, all of these, could contribute to make the work deemed by many an “adventure” a successful one.
While for participants, it is a challenge that ought to be undertaken via which appeasing and acceptable results could be reached. In addition to this, team work makes new creative dimensions to the work available, and creates indispensable pluralistic cultural voices in a work deals with the Syrian war on which Syrians, among others, had never had a unified vision.
In Syria, events were varying in each separate region, the presence in the work of Syrian authors coming from such regions each telling his/her story/ies gives credence to their experiment, this is one of the most important pillars of every literary product, al-Fares noted.
Natural difficulties
Al-Fares noted to the challenges and obstacles saying that the experiment as such is an adventure. Such challenges and obstacles were present at the beginning. It was how to start and embark upon writing.
However, all these were overcome by the team and it met success partly. The team worked symbiotically in addition to the support and encouragement rendered by the supervisor.
She indicated that sometimes talks regarding an event or a figure or the way to shape an event lasted for long hours, such discussions were open for days until a mechanism was reached regarding a viewpoint or a certain issue to build on and go on writing. She believes the biggest ever challenge the team faced was time.
The idea
According to George Kadar, the novel will discuss experiments and testimonies of Syrians from separate areas. Their struggle is not to survive alone but to keep their psyche intact due to the calamities they underwent in the war, detention or the displacement journeys… it is a real novel based on actual testimonies.
Al-Zoubi said that the novel focuses on many aspects not a sole one. It is a literary approach to the Syrian issue burning more than a decade.
Kadar pointed out that a large amount of testimonies were documented and collected in Syria, but due to security concerns their identities will be withheld. For authors who were dispersed by the war to every corner of the globe, there are no participants inside the country though many applications were made.
“However, what precluded that is the pressure to be put on those to take part from inside Syria. This is not strange to an intelligence barbaric regime as the Syrian one. This does not mean the novel is unilateral and from one part. Collected testimonies represent all parts in the country. Those deemed serving variance were selected. This includes supporters of the revolution to those used to say we were living,” he put it.
The novel discussed all parties. It is not the one represents one part at the expense of another. It includes our positions and stances as victims that paid dearly in the war.
Different testimonies
Foz said, interviews and experiences they received represent people having different and varying positions and views regarding “regime and revolution” and from all parts relevant to the Syrian events.
She believes that the event taken place in the early days of the revolution the opposing view would have never been accepted due to her “faith in the revolution” because she was living the events and reacting anxiously and interactively as being “a daughter of the revolution” and a believer being a witness to murder, destruction, bombardment and relentless displacement.
With the passage of time and the vacuum created between her and the events, she has become more ripe in dealing with the event, watching from different angles, and listening to other viewpoints.
She added that merely listening to the other opposing part could reduce differences and vacuum among novelists wherever they are the matter which was impossible at a certain point or implying much difficulties that could not be underestimated.
“To write on an incident after much time lapse makes us more ripe and wise to deal with that incident and to look at it in a different way that takes into account all aspects and be more true and overall.”
As declared on many occasions by participants, this work is a voluntary one, where tens of Syrian writers took the initiative to take part, however, seven of them were chosen to write this novel that is sponsored by Dawlaty Foundation that has the biggest archive with 400 testimonies.