Obituary: 'Obstinate questionings' (b. 8 December, 1941-d. 1 July, 2006) Though born in Cairo, 's family roots were rural. His native village, Kafr Kala El-Bab, close to Tanta, was visited on important family occasions, including the death of his father in 1964. His rural background may not have been immediately obvious to those accustomed to the anonymous metropolitan life of Cairo, but for anybody who has a similar background it was easy to sense; to it I attribute his faith in family ties, even a sprawling family, large enough to include other than blood-relations, as well as his inveterate faith in the heart of man -- that is, man's infinite capacity for love, loyalty and forgiveness. It is, indeed, the denial of these values that animates his first full- length play Al-Kizb ( The Lie ). Helped by his capacity for listening to, and absorbing, the "tales" of others as a boy, Sarhan was soon moving in the Arabic literary circles of the early 1950s, and when in 1961 he obtained his BA in English at Cairo University he had already established firm relations with many of today's -- and yesterday's -- leading cultural figures. Academic diligence and literary ambition became the twin propellers of his future life. It was then that I became increasingly close to him: we wrote radio- plays, radio-talks, articles in a variety of newspapers and magazines and, most important of all, tried to write for the theatre together, having successfully collaborated in adapting two novels for the stage in 1962, and in translating two plays (Ionescu's Rhinoceros and Chekhov's Uncle Vanya ). He wrote The Lie, I Al-Daraga Al-Sadsa (The Sixth Grade), but neither was staged. When Professor Rashad Rushdi, our then head of department, became manager of a new theatrical company, we joined forces yet again, and tried to write different plays. The conflict with his academic career made Sarhan put off his second play, Malik Yabhath 'An Wazifa (A King Looking for a Job), until he had obtained his PhD. But then something remarkable happened. In February 1964 Al-Masrah (The Theatre), a new magazine, was established, with Rushdi as editor, and Sarhan and myself as sub-editors. Throughout the year we were inseparable. The third of our university trio, Abdel-Aziz Hammouda, left for the States two weeks later, and we were joined by Farouq Abdel-Wahab Mustafa, currently professor of Arabic in Chicago. Sarhan and I read voraciously, wrote consistently, and discussed drama interminably. We had each won a scholarship to read for a PhD abroad, he in the US, I in Britain, but the political situation was such that no one was permitted to leave the country without the consent of the prime minister. Our efforts to gain such consent bore fruit in May 1965, and we were, for the first time, separated. Sarhan's tenacity and single-mindedness allowed him to finish his academic work in record time and, back in Cairo in late 1968 with a PhD in drama, he finally saw his second play staged. As the 1960s, a turbulent decade which saw Egypt's stifling international isolation, even within the Arab fold, drew to a close, new hopes were raised. Amazingly, it was Nasser's death in 1970, then regarded as the ultimate disaster, that heralded a new era. Egypt's relations with Arab countries were restored to something like their old salutary form, and Sarhan's King in Search of a Job had to be taken off the stage. The time was ripe for another departure from Egypt -- this time eastwards. Saudi Arabia, even before the oil boom of the mid-1970s, was tempting enough for a whole generation who had dreamt under Nasser of a better future but woke up to harsh and painful realities. Sarhan and Hammmouda left for Jeddah. But the inexhaustible imagination of the young academic-playwright would not be daunted by a change of scene. Apart from contributing regular talks to Saudi radio, as well as articles to Saudi papers, Sarhan soon built up a network of new literary friends. He seems to have breathed a new spirit in the literary life of the place and people quickly relished his talks about drama and the art of the theatre -- indeed, they must have wondered, why shouldn't they have a theatre of some sort? Increasingly tempted by Sarhan's insistence on the need to have some form of theatrical life to break the stagnation of their treadmill existence, academics approved his project of staging a Saudi play, written by him in the Saudi dialect, within the university campus, but in which only Saudi artists took part. Eminent figures were invited to the performance and, with an impressed audience, most of whom had never seen a play before, as well as favourable press reports, Sarhan became a celebrity: his inner circle of literati now expanded to include serious writers and media men. Sarhan considered a historical topic for his third play, Sitt Al-Mulk (the name of the sister of a Fatimid ruler noted for his madness). The theme had been handled before, but Sarhan developed a new approach to a potentially rich tragic treatment capable of preserving the grandeur of the ending. His first draft was lengthy. In the working sessions with director Abdel-Ghaffar Oudah, however, the text was trimmed down, and a good deal of extraneous matter jettisoned. Throughout 1977 he worked diligently on the text, even during the rehearsals, until it was finally staged in February 1978. Sitt Al-Mulk was a hit. What I liked most about the play was its original use of Arab history in delineating a tragic character. Previously regarded as an oddity, having gone down in history as a madman, the Fatimid ruler Al-Hakim Bi Amr Allah was taken seriously in the play as a man concerned with the evanescence of earthly life, and the dreams of immortality engendered by absolute power, and capable of profound thought. A whole medieval tradition seems to have coloured the intellectual environment in which he moved, and to which he contributed: never before, I thought, had a Muslim ruler been portrayed on stage as bedevilled by such "obstinate questionings", as Wordsworth would have it. Having acquired full human dimensions, the protagonist appeared to represent man, pure and simple, in his futile attempt to reconcile himself to the fact of death. No temporal or religious power could prevent the "fall of the axe"; no intellectual or emotional effort could make it less painful; and when, in Sarhan's play, the axe does fall, the protagonist accepts it in silence. The play was history with only a modicum of historical fact -- historical material transformed into a human tragedy. Here we may perceive a continuation of an early theme, first handled in The Lie, modified in A King in Search of a Job and crystallised in Sitt Al-Mulk, namely self- deception. That Sarhan pondered this theme in both his life and art became clear to me as I examined his dramatic work and observed his "performance" in public life. You must be true to yourself was his unspoken motto: he knew that academic life, sheltered and cut off from the vital sources of inspiration in the daily trafficking of people, was not for him. True, he was now a full professor, and had produced enough academic books to make good his claim to the title; but he was, more importantly, an artist, and his inner eye had richer and more truthful visions of man than any kind of academic research could provide. In 1979 a literary event took place in honour of Taha Hussein, a public figure who combined creative writing with an illustrious academic career as professor of Arabic. Sarhan and myself were commissioned to contribute a short documentary play on the life and work of the great man. The play was performed for one night at the National Theatre, before being transferred to Al-Tali'ah for a more extended run. Jointly written, the play required close cooperation in designing the scenes, selecting significant biographical material, before each provided the dialogue for his chosen tableaux. It was an astounding success and Louis Awad, the great critic, whom I invited to see the play, could only comment "How could you, in the present suffocating cultural climate, produce such a good play?" The compliment was gratifying and encouraged me to publish my third play Mit Halawah. It spurred Sarhan to write his fourth play, Rod Al-Farag, which was staged in 1981. In the spring of 1981 Sarhan and I joined an Egyptian delegation that toured the US to familiarise American audiences with contemporary Egyptian culture. Sarhan addressed audiences at six American universities on "Egyptian Theatre Today", and did the job brilliantly, though he spoke more with the voice of the playwright than of the university professor. In the following year he took the momentous decision to work for the Ministry of Culture as its mass culture supreme. His job now involved leaving the academic cloister altogether, though officially keeping his professorship and regularly giving his weekly lectures, even when he was touring the provinces. His success was surprising. People who had doubted the ability of an academic to reach the minds and hearts of the populace didn't know of his rural background; nor, more importantly, of his ability to get beneath the surface to the "essential human being inside each". When he became head of the English Department in 1985, people wondered whether he would continue. He didn't. In the following year he became chairman of the state publishing house, the General Egyptian Book Organisation (GEBO). Here he made use of his "mass culture" experience to inject new life into that institution. His dramatic bent of mind managed to transform the annual Cairo International Book Fair into a boisterous cultural event, with seminars, roundtables, book reviews and public discussions. Book buyers now had time to enjoy poetry readings, recitals, meeting with public figures, including government ministers, and eminent cultural figures from all over the world. Sarhan was helped throughout by his late wife, Nehad Gad, a journalist and playwright. When she died in 1991 his grief was indescribable. In the summer of the same year we collaborated on another documentary (the third after our Taha Hussein, 1979, and Mohamed Farid, 1986), this time on three pillars of Egyptian Enlightenment, Al-Aqqad, Al-Rafi'i and Taha Hussein. Alfred Farag wrote a note on the play which ended with a call that it "tour the country... to educate the people both in their history and in the art of theatre". It attracted capacity audiences at the National Theatre. In 1992 I discovered I had cancer. As soon as Sarhan heard the news he got to work, arranging for me to leave for Paris (with my wife, Nehad Selaiha, and daughter Sarah) to receive whatever treatment was available. Within days the formalities, personally attended to by Sarhan, had been completed, and I was in Paris. He rang me daily from Cairo, to see how I was doing and to amuse me with news of the cultural life in Egypt. He was later to do the same for other men of letters -- and I realised it wasn't merely friendship that impelled him to come to my rescue, but rather the need to conquer death (especially when it appears prematurely and unexpectedly). Back in Cairo in May 1993, having undergone three operations and still recovering from the experience, I found a Sarhan who shrugged off the consequences of the knife that played havoc with my face. He insisted that I resume my duties as supervisor of publishing at GEBO, invited me to take part in rethinking publishing policy and, a year later, when the Reading for All project was launched, began the preparations for the new editions of Arabic classics that would become the Family Library. With the growing success of the Family Library and the annual Cairo International Book Fair, Sarhan moved to break new publishing ground. First a children's encyclopaedia was published in Arabic to cater for the needs of young people, and later a woman's encyclopaedia. I worked closely with him on both projects and watched how his mind, always brimming with ideas, worked. As his audience grew in number, he developed the art of talking to the ordinary man, in everyday Arabic. He contributed a weekly article to Al-Ahram and a monthly article to Akhbar Al-Yawm. In his articles he seems to have created a new literary genre, described by Farouq Shousha as the 'dramatic' article. Now that he has passed away I feel that a glory has passed away from the earth, and I am all the poorer for it. An earlier version of this article appeared as a "Foreword" to Cairo Studies in English: Essays in Honour of , edited by Mohamed Abdel-Aaty (English Department, Cairo University, 2004). By Mohamed Enani
