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Presentation of Stealth by Sonallah Ibrahim
From June 03, 2013 until June 13, 2013
On Thursday, June 13, Egyptian writer Sonallah Ibrahim is presenting his book Stealth in Madrid. The event, organized by Casa Árabe and the publishing house Ediciones del Oriente y del Mediterráneo (which has published the novel in Spanish with the title A escondidas), will also include the participation of Gonzalo Fernández Parrilla, a Professor of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Director of the collection titled "Memories of the Mediterranean," and Nuria Medina García, the Cultural Coordinator of Casa Árabe. The presentation will begin at 7:00 p.m. in the Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62), with free entry until the room’s capacity is full.
In this autobiographic novel, Sonallah Ibrahim gives voice to a ten-year-old child who stealthily observes and listens from behind doors. He rummages through drawers and lowers his eyes when what he sees before him makes him uncomfortable. It is a child whose name we do not know, who lives alone with his father, a modest retired civil servant who spends days doing his household chores: cooking, ironing taking care of his child when sick, helping him with his homework, and even writing his schools essays. However, he cannot seem to fill the enormous void left behind by an absent mother. The tiniest details of everyday life constantly take him years back, reminding him of happy times, paradise lost. Written in a style devoid of all flowery language, with short, simple sentence and the precision of an entomologist, he introduces us into the life of Cairo in 1948.
“I start to look through the window at movie billboards. The tramway bounces along. I look ahead. I realize that the man’s knee is rubbing up against the woman’s leg. She leans towards her girlfriend. She whispers something into her ear. I lift my eyes to look into his face. Our glances cross. I look through the window again. I act as if I were observing the street. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her lean closer towards her friend. The man has nearly stuck his knee between her buttocks. I raise my eyes to look into his face. He remains there staring at me, and I look away. The tramway stops. The woman quickly stands up. She bids her friend farewell. She is afraid to look at the man. She rapidly makes her way through the people standing. I can see her face has grown very red. She heads for the door. Behind, her shawl has got stuck between her thighs.”
Born in Cairo in 1938, he began his studies in Law before moving away to East Berlin and Moscow to study Film and Journalism. Once a journalist and employee of a publishing firm, he was arrested for being a communist militant in 1959 and later released in 1964. During this time of imprisonment, he began to write. His first work, That Smell, published in 1966, was inspired by wrongdoings of the authorities and his release under surveillance and created great controversy in Egypt. The authorities immediately prohibited its sale. After a trip to Upper Egypt, he published The Star of August. Afterwards came The Committee, a text worthy of Kafka, which relates the story of the intellectuals’ subjection and censure by the Nasser government; Warda, in which Sonallah pays homage to the revolutionary ideals of the fifties and sixties through the young protagonist; The Years of Zeth, Amrikanli, An Autumn in San Francisco... His work is marked by style —his characters usually express themselves in the first person, which gives his stories a strong autobiographic tone— and by their content: a profound pessimism fed into by the people’s frustrations, aborted attempts at freedom and endless victories by the police bureaucracy and corruption. He actively took part in the demonstrations and actions by the people which put an end to the Mubarak regime.
“I start to look through the window at movie billboards. The tramway bounces along. I look ahead. I realize that the man’s knee is rubbing up against the woman’s leg. She leans towards her girlfriend. She whispers something into her ear. I lift my eyes to look into his face. Our glances cross. I look through the window again. I act as if I were observing the street. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her lean closer towards her friend. The man has nearly stuck his knee between her buttocks. I raise my eyes to look into his face. He remains there staring at me, and I look away. The tramway stops. The woman quickly stands up. She bids her friend farewell. She is afraid to look at the man. She rapidly makes her way through the people standing. I can see her face has grown very red. She heads for the door. Behind, her shawl has got stuck between her thighs.”
Sonallah Ibrahim
Born in Cairo in 1938, he began his studies in Law before moving away to East Berlin and Moscow to study Film and Journalism. Once a journalist and employee of a publishing firm, he was arrested for being a communist militant in 1959 and later released in 1964. During this time of imprisonment, he began to write. His first work, That Smell, published in 1966, was inspired by wrongdoings of the authorities and his release under surveillance and created great controversy in Egypt. The authorities immediately prohibited its sale. After a trip to Upper Egypt, he published The Star of August. Afterwards came The Committee, a text worthy of Kafka, which relates the story of the intellectuals’ subjection and censure by the Nasser government; Warda, in which Sonallah pays homage to the revolutionary ideals of the fifties and sixties through the young protagonist; The Years of Zeth, Amrikanli, An Autumn in San Francisco... His work is marked by style —his characters usually express themselves in the first person, which gives his stories a strong autobiographic tone— and by their content: a profound pessimism fed into by the people’s frustrations, aborted attempts at freedom and endless victories by the police bureaucracy and corruption. He actively took part in the demonstrations and actions by the people which put an end to the Mubarak regime.
