Ahdaf Soueif

:00:00. > :00:00.policies. That, and much more, at our website. You can download our

:00:00. > :00:29.application also. Hello and welcome to talking books.

:00:30. > :00:35.It's a celebration of culture with around 500 events across ten days.

:00:36. > :00:38.The aim of the festival is to bring together some of the world's

:00:39. > :00:41.greatest writers and thinkers to share their stories and ideas. I'm

:00:42. > :00:47.speaking to the Egyptian author Ahdaf Soueif. Her novel the map of

:00:48. > :00:52.love made in the first Muslim woman to be nominated for a Booker prize,

:00:53. > :00:54.her latest book this is not a border is an anthology celebrating her own

:00:55. > :01:27.extraordinary literary festival. APPLAUSE. Ahdaf Soueif currency

:01:28. > :01:32.hotfooting it from the tents, we are in a 30th and she was here for the

:01:33. > :01:35.Palestinian anniversary, it is their tents, and she has come their

:01:36. > :01:39.straight from organising that and we want to find out a little bit soap

:01:40. > :01:49.welcome, Ahdaf Soueif. Thank you. Thank you. Just tell us a little

:01:50. > :01:54.bit, how did go? OK, while first I just want to say it is a tremendous

:01:55. > :01:58.privilege and pleasure being back at the Hay festival, this place has its

:01:59. > :02:02.own spirit and bars and it's always wonderful to be here. Basically,

:02:03. > :02:08.just for those who don't know, the idea that came to us was, I mean,

:02:09. > :02:14.looking for ways, as people who write or work with culture in

:02:15. > :02:18.general, looking for ways to kind of ameliorate or influence for the

:02:19. > :02:24.better the situation on the ground. We thought that if we took... If we

:02:25. > :02:31.took artists and writers from the West to go and work in Palestine, to

:02:32. > :02:35.do literary readings, seminars, workshops at universities and so on

:02:36. > :02:39.for one week and they would have, you would be giving them a unique

:02:40. > :02:44.experience, you would be enabling them to the experience of living

:02:45. > :02:50.like a Palestinian under occupation, for one week. And he would be giving

:02:51. > :02:57.the Palestinians ex- boat to world-class artists and events. And

:02:58. > :03:00.then basically everyone would go their own way. The one thing that

:03:01. > :03:07.was very clear for example is that we would not avail ourselves of the

:03:08. > :03:10.privileges that come with carrying a foreign and particularly Western

:03:11. > :03:14.passport, so we would travel as a Palestinian with a West Bank ID,

:03:15. > :03:21.Batman for example not choosing the airport, going in through Jordan on

:03:22. > :03:28.the Allenby Crossing, and also going through checkpoints. The other thing

:03:29. > :03:31.was that basically, because of the checkpoints, it's difficult for

:03:32. > :03:36.people to move from town to town. And so we decided it would be the

:03:37. > :03:42.purpose that we would move to its origins and so it became kind of

:03:43. > :03:46.like a circus, we call it a cultural roadshow, and it's on the move every

:03:47. > :03:50.day and meeting students at universities and doing events so it

:03:51. > :03:55.is quite challenging. Michael Pailin, in the way that only he can

:03:56. > :03:58.say it, and you know, he is one of the contributors to this book

:03:59. > :04:03.series, by the way, is for some reason, I cannot remember where he

:04:04. > :04:08.went, but for some reason our stalls and books and cakes and tea were

:04:09. > :04:13.deemed to be a security threat on that occasion. It was closed down.

:04:14. > :04:18.So, you know, definitely, it isn't Hague, that's for sure. There was

:04:19. > :04:23.one point, three years ago, will be had the closing event next to

:04:24. > :04:27.Jerusalem and basically there was trouble and there was tea gas and it

:04:28. > :04:30.was either turned back and not the closing event or walk through the

:04:31. > :04:35.teargas so we walked through the tear gas and one of the authors who

:04:36. > :04:39.was American and I won't say who he was but he was like really upset. I

:04:40. > :04:44.gave him half an onion which is what you do, you put an onion to your

:04:45. > :04:52.nose and that kind of neutralised as it and he just took it and went into

:04:53. > :05:00.the onion! We can't swear, can we? It's a... Onion! Do you mind just

:05:01. > :05:05.reading a passage from your essay on Jerusalem? This is not a border is a

:05:06. > :05:10.collection of pieces written a badgering, after all before this

:05:11. > :05:14.book from people who have been at the festival and I chose to write

:05:15. > :05:19.about Jerusalem because for the last four or five years, we have really

:05:20. > :05:22.seen the push against and into Jerusalem becoming stronger and

:05:23. > :05:31.stronger and at the heart of Jerusalem is of course the dome of

:05:32. > :05:36.the Rock within the sanctuary and it's always, ever since I started

:05:37. > :05:40.doing this, the first time I went to Palestine in 2000, there was a

:05:41. > :05:45.moment when I walked into the century and a really, really felt,

:05:46. > :05:50.felt such a piece, I mean, it's such a beautiful space and throughout the

:05:51. > :05:55.festival, I have really wanted to give the visitors that sense, to

:05:56. > :06:02.give them that moment where you walk in and the world falls way. So I

:06:03. > :06:05.chose to describe the century and what it means and its history and

:06:06. > :06:14.here, this is just the second paragraph in that piece. It says the

:06:15. > :06:23.sanctuary on a hilltop, around the earth fell away. Palestinians built

:06:24. > :06:26.Jerusalem on a hill and the old city slopes gently towards the

:06:27. > :06:33.south-east, towards the century. And there, the central and biggest of 26

:06:34. > :06:38.terraces is the Dome of the Rock. From the south, 20 steps lead up to

:06:39. > :06:42.it, from the north, just nine. You can see the Dome from the

:06:43. > :06:46.surrounding hills but you cannot see it from the city. Only when you come

:06:47. > :06:51.very close to one of the great gateways, when you will almost

:06:52. > :06:56.through it, is the Dome revealed. Light almost floating. Framed by

:06:57. > :07:00.necklaces of slim colonnaded arches and attended by other domes and

:07:01. > :07:04.pulpits and fountains, each of which, alone, would have

:07:05. > :07:11.commandeered your attention. But in the sanctuary, they are modest,

:07:12. > :07:18.demanding nothing, content to be here. Absolutely beautiful. APPLAUSE

:07:19. > :07:25.I love that and actually we discussed you reading it because I

:07:26. > :07:28.think even, someone like me in the news business but I suspect all of

:07:29. > :07:32.you sitting at home and watching the news, we get a slightly distorted

:07:33. > :07:36.view, don't we, of what is going on? And that is such a contrast in such

:07:37. > :07:40.a wonderful contrast. I think it is such a central thing to our

:07:41. > :07:46.thinking, this issue of the distorted view so that was... When I

:07:47. > :07:50.first went, what I was struck by most was the disparity between what

:07:51. > :07:54.I expected and what I saw. I expect that scenes of unmitigated misery

:07:55. > :08:00.and destruction and what I found was a society which was really trying to

:08:01. > :08:08.get on with the business of living. And... Just market and birthday

:08:09. > :08:16.parties and weddings and cultural events and screenings and all, like,

:08:17. > :08:25.absolutely under threat and so there is, is tremendous grace and trim and

:08:26. > :08:29.is beauty and a tremendous will to live and to be part of the, you

:08:30. > :08:33.know, all the conversations that are going on in the world, and that is

:08:34. > :08:38.what, really, touches the heart. If you don't mind I would like to leave

:08:39. > :08:44.this is not a border, I know this is, you have it in the moment, there

:08:45. > :08:49.are of other things I wanted to talk about and one of which is Cairo, you

:08:50. > :08:56.are from Cairo, it is your city, you a book about well, what we called at

:08:57. > :09:01.the time a revolution, but before we talk about that, apparently you are

:09:02. > :09:05.asked many many years previously to write a book about Cairo and you

:09:06. > :09:12.didn't, you waited until after the revolution. What was that about? I

:09:13. > :09:17.needed money. That's not true! That's not true! Well, it's always

:09:18. > :09:22.true. About the money but you thought you weren't ready. No, I

:09:23. > :09:25.wasn't ready. I signed the contract to write a book about Cairo,

:09:26. > :09:28.Bloomsbury will bring out a nice little series by authors about their

:09:29. > :09:33.favourite cities. Edward Wright wrote about Paris and Peter Carey

:09:34. > :09:37.wrote about Sydney and I was going to write about Cairo and I didn't

:09:38. > :09:42.because... It just kind of seemed quite sad because terrible things

:09:43. > :09:46.were being done to the city, were being done to the country, this was

:09:47. > :09:50.after the regime, and after I started to write to collect some

:09:51. > :09:54.sort of allergy, it used to be... And so I didn't do it for years and

:09:55. > :10:00.years. And then basically, January 2011 happened within a few days,

:10:01. > :10:04.Alexandra Pringle my editor at Bloomsbury was on the phone saying

:10:05. > :10:12.well how about that book now? So yeah, I produced the Cairo book in

:10:13. > :10:27.the kind of, yeah, the further... And the title of the book is Cairo,

:10:28. > :10:31.Cairo: My City,, our revolution. I was there as a reporter and looking

:10:32. > :10:37.at the crowd in Thalia Square and it was a Friday and the Christians had

:10:38. > :10:41.encircled the Muslims as they prayed and I came up with this design of

:10:42. > :10:46.Muslims and Christians, young and old, rich and poor coming together

:10:47. > :10:50.in this uprising, in this revolution, and I thought about

:10:51. > :10:55.that, I thought my God, how naive you were. But you celebrated it at

:10:56. > :11:03.the time as well. Goodness! Yeah, my God. OK, I think that... I think

:11:04. > :11:09.that you were not naive. I think that you are absolutely spot on and

:11:10. > :11:14.correct and perceptive and I think that everything that happens and we

:11:15. > :11:20.thought happened was true. And there was a moment, it was lost in several

:11:21. > :11:32.months, when people rediscovered their best selves and actually said

:11:33. > :11:37.so explicitly and where everybody wanted to be the best that they

:11:38. > :11:42.could be and all this truism came out and all this talent and all this

:11:43. > :11:49.energy and all of it, like, in the service of a communal good. And that

:11:50. > :11:55.was just expressed all the time. And people were, like, I am happy to

:11:56. > :12:00.suffer hardship for two years, three years, as long as we are in the

:12:01. > :12:04.right road, as long as this is for everyone and we are building and

:12:05. > :12:09.even the sense that what was happening was informing not just

:12:10. > :12:16.Egypt but was informing the world. What I want to say is that the

:12:17. > :12:20.backlash, the counterrevolution, the backlash, the things that we are

:12:21. > :12:26.living through now have been so very bad that it is quite difficult to

:12:27. > :12:36.hold on to the belief in the reality of what happened. I think that no

:12:37. > :12:38.job and the job of people like me is to always create a space for things

:12:39. > :12:52.to happen. You do that by maintaining the web

:12:53. > :12:56.of connections, People's, possibilities that can come to

:12:57. > :13:00.something in the future. We have 60,000 young people in prison in

:13:01. > :13:05.Egypt, one of them is my nephew, he's just one of them. We have

:13:06. > :13:10.people being disappeared off the streets because the regime has two

:13:11. > :13:14.have elections next year it started three weeks ago just picking up

:13:15. > :13:21.anybody who could be thought of as an activist across the country. And

:13:22. > :13:26.vanishing them into prisons. Since general CC took power, 19 new

:13:27. > :13:31.prisons have been built in Egypt. 19 new prisons. And the contracts for

:13:32. > :13:35.building the prisons go to the military and the contracts for

:13:36. > :13:45.refurbishing the prisons go to the Home Office. So basically you would

:13:46. > :13:52.be letting the 60,000 kids down if you just decided to be pessimistic.

:13:53. > :13:57.So you work on whatever space is allowed, and actually when you're on

:13:58. > :14:01.the ground you see lots and lots of grounds for hope because people

:14:02. > :14:08.don't stop working, they don't stop agitating, trying to build, creating

:14:09. > :14:12.organisations, writing, having photography exhibitions, whatever it

:14:13. > :14:16.is that people do, they carry on doing. You talk about working in

:14:17. > :14:20.whatever space is available to you, the space you've occupied for a

:14:21. > :14:26.very, very long time has been this halfway house if you like between

:14:27. > :14:30.the orient and the West and the Occident, you've written about it in

:14:31. > :14:34.mezzo terror, but I think you say now that that space is becoming

:14:35. > :14:41.smaller and smaller, you're finding it more and more awkward, with that

:14:42. > :14:47.the right? Actually met to terror was published in 2004 and after

:14:48. > :14:51.2011I actually think in different terms there were many of us who

:14:52. > :14:59.occupy what I would call the common ground. The people who actually do

:15:00. > :15:06.see difference as interesting and exciting and productive. I think

:15:07. > :15:11.everywhere in the world there is a push to try and create a better and

:15:12. > :15:17.a new world that is more hospitable to the young and more hospitable to

:15:18. > :15:23.the planet and that allows for a better future and that is being

:15:24. > :15:27.clamped down on by a system and that is the fight we are having. It's not

:15:28. > :15:31.between East and West, it's between the people who want a better future

:15:32. > :15:35.for everybody and the people who want to keep things as they are and

:15:36. > :15:38.clamp down on it and use it and exploit it even more. OK, I've sort

:15:39. > :15:51.of broken... APPLAUSE Thank you. I've broken all the rules I set

:15:52. > :15:58.myself at the beginning about timings. One last question very

:15:59. > :16:04.quickly before I let you go. You've talked about all of this not just as

:16:05. > :16:10.a journalist, not just as an activist, but you're a novelist too.

:16:11. > :16:17.Let me just ask you, the most famous book perhaps is the Map of Love,

:16:18. > :16:21.what is it you were able to do as a novelist in exploring some of the

:16:22. > :16:32.ideas we've already talked about that you can't do as a campaigner or

:16:33. > :16:44.a journalist? I think that it's very dangerous to embark on a novel or an

:16:45. > :16:52.purely artistic project with an agenda in mind. I think that the Map

:16:53. > :16:58.of Love explored, asked questions about things that were very much on

:16:59. > :17:05.my mind at the time, about whether when I say I love you, you

:17:06. > :17:11.understand by love you understand the same thing. Along which is

:17:12. > :17:16.communication, whether it was possible to actually love properly

:17:17. > :17:26.across culture, what was the relationship between the past and

:17:27. > :17:31.now? So, yeah, it asked questions and it explored them and I guess

:17:32. > :17:39.that is what... That is what fiction or art can do, that it can throw out

:17:40. > :17:44.these questions and let's readers make up their own minds, although of

:17:45. > :17:48.course that is also what we do with her first, we put things out there

:17:49. > :17:54.and let people make up their minds but of course articles are much more

:17:55. > :17:58.direct and much more immediate. A novel is a very, very different

:17:59. > :18:03.project. I mean, in a way you have to kind of absent yourself

:18:04. > :18:07.completely from the day to day and the detail of the day to day in

:18:08. > :18:13.order to be able to just, sort of, have the space to fashion a world in

:18:14. > :18:19.which your novel can happen. Time for you to ask some questions. Yes?

:18:20. > :18:24.My question is a bit of a follow-up one on what George was just asking,

:18:25. > :18:29.it's about the craft itself. How do you go about, thinking of the Map of

:18:30. > :18:33.Love, with historical fiction integrating rather seamlessly as you

:18:34. > :18:37.did the political and social history into your story and your plot

:18:38. > :18:42.without letting it dominate the story that probably is going to

:18:43. > :18:46.attract some group of leaders, because as I said you can't come to

:18:47. > :18:51.it loaded with a political message, what advice would you give, how did

:18:52. > :18:54.you do that? If you're lucky and you got a good book on your hands your

:18:55. > :18:58.characters will come to life and when your characters come to life

:18:59. > :19:06.you kind of do what's best for them. And therefore they then moved to

:19:07. > :19:15.occupy their space and the politics and the history become the

:19:16. > :19:23.scaffolding... Obviously it controls what they can or can't do, but it is

:19:24. > :19:31.not their entire life and ultimately one's interest really in politics

:19:32. > :19:35.and history is they affect the individual life, it's not some

:19:36. > :19:39.abstract interest, it's because they cause misery and they cause

:19:40. > :19:44.heartbreak and death and they can cause happiness. So in the end it is

:19:45. > :19:50.the individual life that is centre stage. Yes, sir.

:19:51. > :19:55.You made two comments about writing novels. The first one was that you

:19:56. > :20:00.don't think it's right to embark on a purely artistic project with an

:20:01. > :20:12.agenda or I think what you meant was a political agenda in mind, and then

:20:13. > :20:17.you also said that in the Pelfest, everything is political, and one can

:20:18. > :20:20.think of so many novels that do have a political message, like for

:20:21. > :20:26.example in South Africa, Alan Peyton's cry with the bloke Anne

:20:27. > :20:30.Dickins for example who make a political point with everything they

:20:31. > :20:38.write. How can you reconcile these two statements? I think a novel or a

:20:39. > :20:42.work of art can be political, will be political, I just don't think...

:20:43. > :20:49.I would not be comfortable sitting down and thinking I am going to

:20:50. > :20:54.write a novel to show that oppressing women is bad for example.

:20:55. > :21:01.Obviously oppressing women is bad and Middlemarch is a great feminist

:21:02. > :21:10.novel for example, but I think when you're creating a novel or a film

:21:11. > :21:16.you need to be willing to let it have its own integrity... You set

:21:17. > :21:21.out, obviously you are yourself and you have your political beliefs and

:21:22. > :21:29.so on and they will get in there, but it's not there to serve them.

:21:30. > :21:35.Your job is to conceive of a novel and then allow it to go its own way

:21:36. > :21:44.and see what it does rather than to hand it in to a particular message

:21:45. > :21:49.you want to get across I think. I'm afraid our time's up. I've been a

:21:50. > :21:55.journalist for 30 something years and this story in the Middle East

:21:56. > :21:58.has been told in such stark and sometimes ugly terms, thank you for

:21:59. > :22:05.civil eyes in the debate. Ahdaf Soueif. -- civilising. APPLAUSE

:22:06. > :22:38.Rough rule of thumb for the day ahead is that where you were warm

:22:39. > :22:41.and sunny yesterday, you will be that bit cloudier