After hearing of the immense success of her newest book, I was keen to meet the author Sahar El Mougy. I went to visit her at her cozy apartment in a peaceful neighborhood in Mokatam. I was surprised at how young she looked. The curly haired, fresh faced attractive woman has a natural and easy going attitude as well as sparkling intelligence in her eyes. El Mougy is a lecturer of English Literature at Cairo University. She is also an announcer at Radio Cairo, where she has a show dedicated to writers. Under her belt she now has four publications, "Sayida Fy El Manam (a book of short stories published in 1998). That was shortly followed with her first novel "Daria (1999) which received many awards and helpe establish her as a writer. In 2003 she published her second novel "Elahy Saghira and now "Noon (which is the letter N in the Arabic alphabet.) In our interview El Mougy talks about her newest book, characters and inspirations. The Daily Star Egypt: When did you decide to become a writer? Sahar El Mougy: Writing came to me late. I was depressed and on my 30th birthday I decided to write. Before I used to write an article every now and then, but I wrote in this case in order to understand what I feel exactly (it was published in "Nos El Donia magazine). And that was the beginning of writing for me. After the article I started writing short stories. DSE: Your books are written in Arabic, do you ever think of getting them translated into English? A few of my short stories are translated not the whole book. I would love to but I don't know who would be interested in publishing it. I actually do have the first part of my short stories translated, but I'm very bad at marketing. DSE: How are your novels received? They came out in the 90's and it was a time where a lot of writers of my generation published. The scholars at the time took notice that all these women writing at the same time, not focusing on the big issues that the previous generation was holding on to like the country. We did this without knowing each other, we are the product of the same generation. They celebrated us, especially because we were women. We got established as a generation together; although each of our works are different we do sometimes cover similar paths. "Noon is a little different because it was marketed by 15/11 Agency who specializes in web design. They wanted to start marketing books, and when they read "Noon they decided that this will be there first launch project. So lots of publicity took place before the book came out. The cover of the book (designed by Saleh Abdel Azim), which is shocking to some, was put all over not only culture centers but restaurants and places like that. The campaign was bigger than any ever done for a book in Egypt, as a result the book ran out in the first week. We always thought no one read in the country, turns out that they do read just nobody ever reached out for them. DSE: What is the "Noon about? Noon revolves around four character three women and a man; they are all friends and middle aged. The story is narrated by Hathor, the goddess of love, music and dance in ancient Egypt. In the beginning of each chapter there is a Hathorian voice that seems like it is coming from ancient text, it is actually a compilation it's either text I wrote or poetry in Arabic and English. The old voice reflects on the new. The novel is set between 2001- 2003. It stars with September 11 and ends with the Abu Gharib scandal. The theme is not political, it is in the remote background, but is meant to show the hate that exists in the world. Against this ugly background, the four characters enter their inner temples. Hathor has another face Sekhmet who is the goddess of blood and destruction: they are one entity. As a reader you see each other characters move from one face to the other. The idea is defeat, and seeing the inner development of each character. DSE: Is the book a fantasy? No it's actually very very realistic. Of course there is an element of fantasy through the voice of Hathor, and her reflections. The development of characters inside his/her inner temple is not fantasy. DSE: What is the moral of the book? We get tired in our everyday life, but many people ignore the inner life which is actually the core of everything. DSE: Is the inner conflict of the characters resolved by the end of the book? The novel finishes that Hathor doesn't want to end the book. She doesn't believe in the end, because every end pint is the beginning point for something else. So instead let's explore different scenarios for the character and she established dialogue with the reader. "Should we leave Sara in England? Should we make her fall in love again? and so on. DSE: Is Hathor you? Definitely I wouldn't say it is me. But when you read the novel you can say she is Sara. But you can never be sure. She is following the four characters, but they are the closest two voices. DSE: Tell me a little bit about each character? Sara is half British, a psychology professor, divorced and in love with two men. Hosam is from Mansour (Egyptian country side) he came to Cairo to study. He has a passion for politics and thinks he can save the world. He becomes a journalist on an English website. His father left when he was in school, so he always worked to support his family. His sister is monakaba and he is against it. This new fundamentalist attitude is everywhere whether in modern areas or the country side. Nora is a francophone who works in a travel agency. She is the one whose curve falls down. She starts out perfect: beautiful, loves her body and very much in touch with her femininity. She gets divorced and then lost in a way. Donia is the youngest. She is an art teacher in a school. She does voluntary work for women and she joins in demonstrations. She doesn't know anything about an inner life but gradually she settles into her temple. She is half Egyptian and half Palestinian but holds neither passport. Noura and Donia suffer from very conventional backgrounds so there are always clashes with their mothers. "What are people going to say about a divorced woman who comes home at 3 am and so on. Donia knows how to divide herself from this voice. She starts to realizes that her choices where not her own, but just to spite her mother. Noura starts out smart, but she breaks. Although she has always done whatever she wants, on an inner level it drives her crazy. DSE: How do you come up with characters? A collage of people you see comes together on a theoretical level and when you write they acquire a life of their own. I was very conscious in my choices of each characters career because it plays a big role in the book. If the characters are mature enough they create dialogue, fights or monologues on their own. At one point I was laughing out loud at Hosam while I was sitting at my computer. He said a joke and it was really good. DSE: How long does it take you to write a book? There are no rules. My last book took six months to write. Noon took me four years, excluding the research time. DSE: What where your inspirations while writing "Noon ? I traveled to Switzerland to start writing. A château for writers hosted me for three weeks. The first 10 days my muse was no where to be found. I had eight pages written that I didn't even like. Then it picked up. After Switzerland I went to France for another three weeks. When you're not interrupted your mind takes on a life of its own. You really reach crazy areas. It's really wonderful. Sahar El Mougy will be at El Diwan bookstore in Zamalek for book signing today starting 7 pm.
