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"Cities Without Palms" is a story of freedom, creativity, nostalgia - and hope. * For many years Tayib Salih, author of the memorable "Season of Migration to the North" published in 1967, dominated Sudanese literature. In the last decade, however, two authors have appeared on the literary scene, Leila Aboulela, the award winning novelist who wrote "The Minaret" and - Tarek Eltayeb. His first novel "Mudun Bila Nakhil", Cities without Palms was originally written in Arabic in 1992. Its English translation by Kareem James Palmer - Zeid has been published by the American University in Cairo. In a desperate attempt to save his mother and two sisters from famine and disease, a young man leaves his native village in Sudan and sets out alone to seek work in the city. This is the beginning of Hamza's long journey. Hunger and destitution lead him ever farther from his home: first from Sudan to Egypt, where the lack of work forces him to join a band of smugglers and finally from Egypt to Europe - Italy, France, Holland - where he experiences first-hand the harsh world of migrant laborers and the bitter realities of life as an illegal immigrant. Tarek Eltayeb's first novel offers an uncompromising depiction of poverty in both the developed and the developing world. With its simple yet elegant style, "Cities without Palms" tells of a tragic human life punctuated by moments of true joy. It is a story of freedom, creativity, nostalgia - and hope. It also reminds of the author's own life, interview Q: You were born in Cairo, in Egypt. How do you remember the Cairo of your childhood? Tarek: The Cairo of my childhood is the Cairo of sixties and for me as a child - a great time. I lived at different places, first in one of the older parts of Cairo, named Al-Bayyoumi. We then moved to Ain Shams, which in those days used to be a village in the vicinity of the desert. I remember Ain Shams with green fields and farmers. Should you visit it today, you can not understand what am saying as it has changed so much. I grew up between yellow color in the north east and the green color in the north. With my family, we used to spent great summers in Al-Arish on the Mediterranean sea in northern Sinai on the beach with all those wonderful palms - all up to 1967, when we lost our small house there. My childhood was without TV, but we used to listen to radio and I was fascinated by the stories that my mother, grandmother or great grandmother used to tell. I like to remember my first visits to the cinema with my mother. We used to watch films with Farid El-Atrash, Abdelhalim Hafez, Rushdi Abaza, Faten Hamama and many others. Q: Your parents were Sudanese, how do you remember Sudan, and what does Sudan mean to you? Tarek: My father was born and grew up in Sudan and he came to Cairo beginning of fifties. My mother, grandma and great - grandma were all born in Egypt. My father in particular used to be attached to country of his birth. He used to travel at least once a year to Sudan and spend there at least five weeks prior his retirement. As he traveled in summer, we children, did not find it attractive to join him. But once at the age of 20 I did go with him and we both had a wonderful journey. We traveled first by train to Aswan and then by ship to Wadi Halfa and then by train to Al-Khartoum. Sudan always played a great role in our lives in Cairo. We used to hear many stories from my father and relatives which came to visit or stay with us for a day, two month or longer, always without prior announcement. There was Sudanese food in our home as well as Egyptian. Ain Shams (the City of the Sun) used to be a favorite place to settle for Sudanese community. The Sudanese colloquial language was all around us, and music, Sudanese songs, traditions and feasts, weddings, funerals - mixed with the Egyptian dialect, kitchen, music and Egyptian traditions. Q: What is was like to be growing up as a Sudanese in Cairo, some favorite places, friends? Tarek: As a child one does not consider oneself as foreigner in any country. The place one born, this is your - place. And nobody can take this from you head, or memory or soul. My favorite places will always be the small streets and alleys of old Cairo, Ain Shams in the sixties and seventies and Al-Arish with its wonderful beach and nature. In my childhood there was no real difference between Sudanese and Egyptian people, either socially or politically. But there was a change in eighties and suddenly, we Sudanese were considered foreigners. Q: Your first writings and artistic expressions? Tarek: My interest in art and expression began early, at the age of 7 or 8 maybe. I was fascinated by calligraphy, caricature and painting. I painted on the walls of our house, from the up to bottom and there are still traces of it today. My parents, of course, were less happy with this kind of art. Also I was interested in Arabic language and started early to imitate my father in reading. My father had a selection of literature at home and liked to read. My first experiments in writing poetry were at the age of seventeen. I was trying to express my feelings, when I fell for first time in love. But it was in Vienna that I begun to write literature seriously. I was 26 and the year was 1985. Q: You then entered "your own season of migrating to the north" to Austria, why to Austria, first encounters with "otherness" Tarek: After my graduation from university I faced frustrating time. Suddenly, we Sudanese, found ourselves foreigners in Egypt and I should pay a rather high fee in order to continue my studies at university. I had to discontinue my studying for my Masters degree and found a job in a small auditing office in Cairo. I earned - at that time - only 30 Egyptian pounds per month (about 20 US dollars in that time). This salary was not enough even for transport. The job I was doing was rather silly. It did not require a university degree to collect bills, sorting them according to dates and then according to amounts. There was no challenge, nor anything to learn. Then after few months, I decided to try my chance in another Arab country. The only country that was open at that time (1981) without visa was Iraq. This proved another bad experience. I had a restaurant in the north of the country, in Erbil. It turned out to be a rather dangerous place and I nearly lost my life. I decided to return to Cairo and fled via north of Iraq first to Turkey, from there to Cairo. Thus the money I had "saved" from the whole journey was 10 dollars with which I took the taxi from the airport to our home. I did not see a good chance for me in Egypt and I decided to leave Egypt for Europe in order to continue with my studies there. I did not want to go to London or Paris - like most of my friends did. I wanted to start a "real" new life, maybe in Scandinavia or Germany. I sent letters to universities in Germany enquiring about the possibilities for studying there. And then I then found out that I could study in Austria for free, an offer to students from underdeveloped country. I made my decision but it turned out to be another long journey inside Austria, facing not so much the culture shock, but the language shock (German) and the weather shock as I arrived in Vienna in January. Q: In your beautiful poem "Broken Shadow" written in Vienna, you say "my shadow remained broken, though the path did run straight now", can you elaborate? Tarek: The meaning here is reference to the past - to the invisible memory that we all carry inside us - all the time. For some it could be a hard burden, for others it might be easier. There is a proverb in German that "you cannot jump over your shadow." There were some breaking lines, some corners - dark or bright on the path of these memories. As a writer one should not make a straight line out of them or gloss over them. "The Broken Shadow" is not meant to be negative. It is characteristic features of our life - we all have to deal or better live with it. Q: What was the inspiration for "Cities without Palms" and which cities without palms are explored here? Tarek: The inspiration is simply all those young people one meets in the countries where I was born. Young people without HOPE! No good education, no health facilities, no future, just fighting for survival, getting no support from the governments, growing up in a world of poverty, hopelessness and corruption. I wanted to give a voice to all those who are born in this part of the world, forced to leave their countries, simply to try to survive, or support their families in their fight for survival. I wanted to describe the reality- for the other part of the world - to understand. Q: There are several issues central issues, for example migration to the north. Words that come to mind are "its just you and the great deep, in this situation; you cannot hedge your bets. It's all or nothing. You are leaving what is familiar and plunging into something so immense and unpredictable that no person or thing can prepare you for it. It looks like an ordinary day to the rest of the world, but you know that everything is heightened now. You are in a responsive and magical universe and surrendering to it". In your novel you acknowledge the issue, but do not show the way out -why? Tarek: I should like to speak in the name the book´s hero Hamza. He is 17 years old, has little education from the Quranic School, he has to act more from out of his instincts and intuition. He manages to go to the 'north", is taking the chance, and finding the end that it was all - in vain. It is voice such as Hamza that is all too often ignored in our intellectual world. If only we would listen more and watch carefully, we could understand much more. Q: Another issue is the issue of poverty. A passage from the "Cities without Palms reads: "a bleak place, with little hope for the future, where even the palms trees have almost all died. Hope must life elsewhere". What his hope and where lies home? Tarek: Hamza is fighting for himself and his family. There is no hope in his village. That's why he is moving to another place in search for possibilities for earning money. His journey means that he has not given up "hope" completely. There is still some "hope" in him and taking him forward from one place to the other and is not giving up. His whole journey from one city to the other is a nightmare and a journey of losses, but he never loses "hope" completely and even has moments of happiness and even joy. Q: "Cities without Palms" is also a journey through time and space - which time and which space? Tarek: Hamza moves from a very poor place and bad time to another one, expecting that it will get better. But then it turns out that also the "new" places are not good for him, or those like him who do not belong to any of those new places and times he passes. They are not accepted by those societies. Q: Your hero Hamza returns to the wadi, and swallows the bitterness of loss, estrangement. Has your second novel "The Palm House" more answers in this respect? Tarek: "The Palm House" can be read independently from "Cities without Palms". But one meets Hamza again and of course there are some similarities with "Cities without Palms". One learns more about Hamza´s childhood in the village, about his family and his life before he immigrates to Vienna. There he meets a young woman, and after some time he feels ready to remove stone after stone from his heart in tells her about his life. The love for Sandra enables him to speak about his past and at the same time enables him to think about his FUTURE. Q: Your second novel "The Palm House" already received glaring reviews. Your hero Hamza travels to Austria with a copy of 1001 Night Tales and Asmahan´s song "Nights of Pleasure" and earns love from a lovely Austrian lady. Did you want to say that despite differences we may have, it is "humanity" which is the ultimate bonds between us and hope can or should be build upon? Tarek: Yes, "humanity" is the ultimate bond between us. We are loosing much of our "humanity", when we try to emphasize the differences and build borders between us. Sandra, the young woman Hamza meets in Vienna, wants to listen and know his story, wants to understand and get to know him. When she learns more about Hamza - step by step - she also learns more about herself. Q: Your other Viennese writings breath self impose isolation, loneliness, and sadness of some sort but which gave impetus to creative action: Two novels, a number of published short stories, plays, poetry, paintings. The words that come to mind are "here I come in self-annihilation and the grandeur of inspiration to cast of rational demonstration by faith in the savior/to cast off the rotten rags of memory by inspiration / to cast aside from poetry all that is not Inspiration". Are you pleased with responses to your writings? Tarek: I am very pleased with responses. I began to write in Vienna, because I did not have many friends here, almost lost my language, as there were only very few persons I could speak in my mother tongue. At the same time, I also lost many of my friends due to my absence of Egypt. I started to write out of feeling of loneliness and isolation and it certainly paved the impetus for creative writing in those days. In meantime, I feel in Vienna at home, but did not forget the world where I come from. In Vienna I found my place, have through writing found many friends all over the world. I always say that am living in two worlds - not between two worlds. But at end, it is one big world. Q: One of your favorite subjects is how human beings adapt to foreign surroundings in which they feel lost and how can they fit into a different society without giving up their own personality. Would you like to expand? Tarek: The thing I learned early in my new surrounding in Vienna that it is me who is the foreigner, and not others and that I should be take an interest in this society and find a place in it. But to become a member of this "new" society into which you were not born, requires efforts from both sides. At the same time, it is important to keep your own identity or to assimilate yourself. I am convinced that there are a many things which can be added to one's identity - without losing it. For me "identity" is something that is changing all the time. Final thoughts: Tarek: There is so much in our life that surrounding us, that would be worth to give more attention. I meet simple people and I learned so much from them. Tarek Eltayeb, thank you very much. BOOK REFERENCE Cities without Palms by Tarek Eltayeb The American University in Cairo Press Hardback, 90 pages FROM REVIEWS: Once started it is difficult to put down. It is sensational, original, and altogether a magnificent literary debut. James Kirkup, Banipal ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tarek Eltayeb (novelist, fiction writer, poet, playwright; Austria) was born in Cairo to Sudanese parents and educated in Austria. He has published five collections of poems, most recently Bacd Az-Zann [Certain Suspicions] (2007); two novels, Bayt An-Nakhil [The Palm House] (2006) and Mudun Bila Nakhil [Cities Without Palms] (1992); two short story collections, and a play, El-Asanser [The Elevator] (1992). His writings have been translated into several languages, including English. His awards include the Elias Cannetti Fellowship from the City of Vienna and three Major Project Fellowships for Literature, and he was honored by the Austrian government for his contributions to intercultural dialogue.
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Tarek Eltayeb, novel, migration to north, Sudanese in Egypt, poverty hope identity. Vienna writings and paintings,
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