Lebanese novelist Natalie Khoury Gharib narrates her experience with her first book … A study on the poet and theologian Michel Hayek

Critics say that contemporary Arab culture is striving to compensate for the absence of the intimate aspect in the book’s relationship with their writings, customs, spaces, tools for writing, areas of inspiration, dream blocks and feelings that sweep over the body at the moment of writing and thinking.

In comparison with Western culture – in which these external factors are present about the emergence of the act of writing – the meetings and dialogues try to celebrate the so-called “first manuscripts” found in various institutions and museums of the world. Read also Transmission of infection and Soraya shines on the text .. The journey of the Iraqi poet and critic Hatem Al-Sakr with the title The Journey of the Yemeni Novelist, Wajdi Al-Ahdal, with Headlines: I use intertex tuality and contradiction, and Dickens’s “Tale of Two Cities” fascinated me Covers of the day and night and the search for a pearl .. The journey of the Omani poet Zaher Al-Ghafri with the title The publisher interferes with the last episode of Zawyet Al-Jazeera Net “My Journey with the Title”

And because most of these early books were not innocent at the moment of writing – with the pain and pangs of birth that were printed on them – their memory is deeply engraved in the meadows of memory and the writer / artist / novelist / poet feels with it about the beginnings and the first shivers in the world of writing and publishing. Before the eyes of the reader, he devoured sections of his autobiography, its delusions, and its relationship to the lives of others, living and dead.

In this “new nostalgic space” – which Al Jazeera Net opens – a number of Arab writers – of all colors, generations, sensitivities, and creative and intellectual paths – reveal the rosy dreams that invaded their imaginations on the outskirts of publishing the first book, and are questioned about the reasons behind the temptation and method of publishing And the dreams that they had while awaiting the opinion of the publisher? What happened after the book was published? Are people now dealing with them on the basis that they are writers? Then what has changed in their lives? Do they regret editing their first book?

Today’s guest is the Lebanese writer and novelist Nathalie El-Khoury Gharib, a literary name that has emerged in the past few years and has become important in the new Lebanese literature, as she parallels novel and academic criticism in her writings and is always dominated by the mystical soul, which makes it an aesthetic starting point for all her fictional works.

Even as she writes criticism, she opens a window for herself to the imagination and the wildness of the critical language and the change of its contexts and contents. Rather, it establishes a different monetary edifice while it invokes its literary resource to read the transformations of the Arabic poetic text.

It was published, for example, but not limited to “Azhar al-Absurd”, “Sufi Maqamat in the poetry of Rabi’a Abi Fadel,” “Existential Anxiety in Michel Hayek’s Poetry,” “Transients,” “The Fourth Way,” “When Minds Love”, and this is her testimony on Nostalgia The first book:

Being under the light

When I published the first book, “Existential Anxiety in the Poetry of Michel Hayek” in 2013, it had been written nearly 12 years ago, but my name was associated with it and still is today, because the poet was a theologian, a bold and eloquent scholar (he wrote many books in literature, poetry, and interfaith dialogue, including “” Maronism: Revolution and Freedom ”and“ Christ in Islam ”), and what I remember most is the day of the ceremonial symposium about him held by the publishing house (House of the Whole East), followed by other seminars about it in the same year, in which writers, critics and great thinkers participated.

I remember sitting in the symposium and almost hiding my face in embarrassment and listening to those talking about the book and saying in secret: Are they talking about my book ?! Some of them praise the book a lot, and some of them praise the poet without mentioning the book (and here I was relaxing), and after the end of every seminar on my first book, I had two feelings disputed; Horror, of course, because it is the first time that I am under the light and this feeling does not rest, as well as the fear of the responsibility for the success of this seminar after the publisher’s great confidence and support in me, this does not mean that I was not happy, but my nature of absurdity in receiving things makes me feel that this place – as a player In the play- Not for Me, who used to sit in the back seats at seminars, listen and clap.

Academic study on Hayek

Guide to writing the first book is the first part of my studies that I applied to obtain a master’s degree in Arabic. At that time, I was searching for wisdom in literature or Sufism among a contemporary writer, and I asked my supervising professor to allow me to borrow the collections that have a spiritual or mystical dimension to contemporary poets He gave me among the books the collections of Father Hayek (1928-2005) entitled “The Cave of Memories” and “Poems to Alienation and Death” and “The Promised Land.” Advertising

After less than two days, I had read it and saw in it contemporary poetry in a transparent spiritual space that enriches the soul with its beauty and rhythm and thrives it with his deep existential questions. Boredom and the image of death down to anxiety and heartbreak and his vision of what comes after death.

Since the themes of his poetry require a philosophical background to understand terminology and intellectual currents; In parallel, I moved to study philosophy and returned to my first year of specialization in philosophy, as I knew at that time that the study of spiritual and intellectual poetry could not be done from the angle of my first major, i.e. Arabic language and literature. I learned from this book to return to zero, to renewed beginnings in the transition to a new specialization, scientific research needs scientific humility and renewed knowledge that does not stop.

Publishing and the new life of the book

The book does not like to sleep long in the computer, because it was written at a certain stage in accordance with certain discoveries, so it is better to see the light after its completion. Emotionally, when the book is published, the writer feels that he is freed from it, and that he is able to think of new things. Publishing revives the book and gives it an identity, an entity and a name, and makes it reach two eyes that decipher its codes, lines and meaning. The reader makes the manuscript a living book. The book dies with the death of its reader, not the death of its author.

My story with publishing in its launch is very easy, as I contacted the Lebanese journalist Antoine Saad, the owner of the House of the Great Mashreq, and after I presented to him the manuscripts of my research books and viewed them and agreed to publish them all in succession (there were three manuscripts), with interest in seminars and book signings in book fairs, until My books published in the House of the Great Mashreq reached 7 books, between critical research, novels and literary articles.

Antoine Saad was one of the most prominent people who encouraged me to continue writing, through his complete confidence in my literary and critical writings, and subsequently publish them. This does not prevent me from publishing in other houses, such as the Innovation House in which I published a collection of stories, the Nineveh House in which I translated a book of Sufism, and published my latest novel, The Fourth Way, and Dar Nour.

A critical celebration confined to friends

To see your name on the cultural pages as an article writer; It differs from reading your name in conjunction with your book within the subject of an article, after you approached other people’s books and then exchanged roles with them. As my first research book, the critical celebration was restricted to the friends and lovers of the poet in question.

And in the direct answer to your question, What has changed after publication, perhaps my awareness that I “did not have a dire bit of pir”, and the nature of my thoughts does not allow me – whether in the case of a great success or a great failure – to give matters a great deal to stop at; When any new book is published, I start searching for a new idea, a new research topic, or a new novel, according to the obsessions, readings and educational commitments at that stage.

In literary books (novels and stories) I write my sentiments and thoughts, and in critical research books I write my convictions and my vision into the texts. Likewise, from the first book to the present day, the nature of research work in the field of human sciences makes me open to all opinions in my work, whether negative or positive, because tastes and readings differ according to different readers, so I rejoice in articles about my work, what came out of it in agreement or opposite.

 The reference in the poetry of Hayek

With the publication of the first book and because it is the first critical study in the poetry of Father Hayek – considering that all the studies that dealt with it in Arabic and French dealt with it as a thinker, theologian and philosopher, which are studies in his theological and intellectual works – my book became a general reference on his poetry, and there were many invitations directed to me to participate in seminars dealing with his poetry, Therefore, I mentioned at the beginning of the dialogue that this book made my name associated with Al-Hayek’s poetry as a critical imprint, because it is the first on his poetry.

I don’t think one can speak of remorse in terms of writing and publishing. On the contrary, I find that the writer – in research, criticism, novel, story, article, translation, and others – passes through stages and stages, which develop with accumulations of knowledge and maturity of the critical sense. Especially in my work as a university professor, continuous reading and continuous research work are our tools of knowledge in which we work, because life, literature and criticism are in constant renewal.

It cannot stay in one station; Therefore, I am very happy when I compare any research I do today with my first research that I started about 20 years ago, and I am happy with the transformations and approaches that are constantly changing and developing, otherwise our work will be copies of each other. Regret in writing is the death of new ideas, the death of renewal, the death of launch.