Remembering Naguib Surur: Shawqi Fahim remembers a friend

Fahim shares his memories of the legendary poet's toughest years, revealing the existence of the deceased author's incomplete autobiography

Shawqi Fahim, an Egyptian author and translator, was a close friend of Naguib Surur. He wrote the introduction for the latest edition of Surur's collection of poems,Lezum ma yelzam (The Necessity of the Necessary), published by El-Shorouk publishing house in 2006.
Fahim goes back in time in the introduction, recounting his first encounter with Nagiub Surur in 1954 through the Modern Literature Group in Cairo. During a poetic symposium where many writers and poets gathered, a slim, handsome young man suddenly appeared on the stage without being introduced or asked to speak. He, however, surprised and mesmerised the audience when he dramatically stated:
I'm the son of misery
The stepson of the barn and the bench
In my village all the people are wretched
In my village there is a mayor like a God
Surur continued reciting his poemAl-Hezaa (The Shoe)in which he describes a scene from his childhood when he witnessed his father being beaten with a shoe in the mayor's house.
Shawqi Fahim believes that Surur's sensitive soul began recovering at the end of 1975, after spending sometime in a psychiatric hospital in Alexandria. He returned to Cairo with his small family and resided in his own home, having before hopped from one cheap hotel room to another. He was so delighted, that he told Fahim: “Now for the first time I have my own bathroom. That was my greatest wish!”
Surur explained: “Throughout that period, I knew exactly what I was doing when I wandered through the streets barefoot and with torn clothes. I remember everything. I did it all on purpose. I wanted to tell the fancy intellectuals: ‘Here I am, walking in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria barefoot and wearing torn clothes, feeling the shame of defeat. Here I am, tarnishing your dignity.'”
Surur wrote profusely after he settled down, completing Al-Toufan Al-Thani(The Second Deluge) andBrotokolat Hukama' Riche(The Protocols of the Elderly of Café Riche). The last attempt of writing wasFaris Akhir Zaman(Knight of Our Age) which was intended as a novel and autobiography, but it was never completed. The forty-page manuscript remains with his family to this day.
Fahim ended, recalling the tragic early death of the legendary Naguib Surur in October 1978. Despite this, the author argues, Surur' works have remained popular, especially among the younger crowd who continue to stage his plays. “Was his message directed to the future more than anything else?” Fahim wonders.
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