The pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al Awsat, published in London, used the word “tsunami” to describe the boom of new Saudi literature. What do you believe lies behind all this commotion?
Arabia is the cradle of Arab language and poetry. It is a long poem and a splendid story that has never been written. This history has been passed down orally for centuries. All those who originally came from the Arabian Peninsula are part of these beautiful stories. Recently, Arabia returned to an era of writing and freedom of expression that allows this literary production.
Why did you decide to write ‘La Cinture’ in French?
You mean why did I choose France? Just like a poet chooses poetry, I chose France. It is there that I discovered a great deal about the history of the Arabian Peninsula, especially thanks to the work of Western Orientalists. And it was also in France that I discovered my own individuality. So French became the language of my research and consequently the one I use for writing.
In a recent editorial in the English magazine Banipal, Lebanese journalist Youssef Bazzi wrote: “Europe is no longer a place of exile or refuge for the Arab intellectual and writer. It is his publishing house, his reader, his pavement or sidewalk, his pulpit, his bookstore, and his city.”
I have never felt I was a foreigner in Paris. When I look at the sky at night, I see the same stars I admired in my village. In this era of globalisation, Europe enriches all its “citizens” who come from all over the world and enrich others in turn. It is the cultural and human plurality that protected my own culture here in Paris.
Is your book banned in Saudi Arabia?
Saudi Arabia allowed me to come and study in Paris in 1980. Since 1982 I have worked as a journalist for the Saudi daily newspaper Al Riyadhi which published La cinture within the framework of the project entitled “A newspaper’s books”, in cooperation with UNESCO. So my book was widely read in Saudi Arabia.
What are you working on at the moment?
The poor do not reveal their future! I am currently working on subjects concerning my society of origin and above all about love.
Translated by Francesca Simmons