Soha Hesham discovers who used to photograph Mubarak With its peculiar Arabic title, Ahmed Mourad's novel Vertigo (the original uses the English word instead of any of several Arabic equivalents) translated by Robin Moger and published by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing (BQFP) at the end of 2011, four years after it was published in Arabic �ê" raises questions about the significance of the 25 January revolution to literature. Recently Mourad and two other Egyptian authors �ê" Khalid AlKhamissi, author of Taxi (translated by Jonathan Wright) and Ahmed Khaled Towfik, author of Utopia (translated by Chip Rossetti) �ê" went on a tour of the UK to promote the BQFP editions. It is easy to guess that interest in "best-selling" Egyptian fiction in English translation flourished in response to the revolution. What no one had known until then was that Mourad, besides being an author of thrillers, was the toppled president Hosni Mubarak's official photographer; so, indeed, he revealed to the Guardian and the Observer during the tour. Born in 1978, Mourad is a photographer by profession. In his 370-page novel, Ahmed Kamal, a protagonist seemingly like Mourad, witnesses a bloody murder in an exclusive Cairo bar frequented by business tycoons and people in power. Notwithstanding both predictability and difficulty in suspending disbelief, Kamal is the only �ê" unknown �ê" witness to the horrific crime; he just happens to have his finger on the shutter in continuous shooting mode, with the lens aimed at the right direction, when it happens. So not only is he a witness, he has evidence too "I wrote that crime scene while sitting in the same restaurant that I mention in Vertigo with all its details around me," Mourad says. "I was sitting there when a few people came into the restaurant and I started to visualise and compose the scene. I've had a rich imagination since I was a child." Thrillers have nearly no history in modern Arabic literature, but the exciting vibes he was getting, bit by bit, Mourad tenaciously followed through. "I won't necessarily continue writing in the same genre. My imagination might take me somewhere else. But that's where it took me this time." Never mind that Mourad's next number, fiction Turab Al-Mas (Diamond Dust), is an even bloodier page-turner in the same mould. "There was no particular motive in writing for me. First I was writing for myself, unwittingly; it wasn't supposed to be published, I chose writing as a kind of therapy as I was socially and economically in a bad way. Five or six years had passed since my graduation and I hated myself for doing nothing in that time; and then, when I started working as a photographer. In 2007, as a result, I decided to start writing �ê" and that developed into a career path round about the time when I was finishing off Vertigo." In 2002, Mourad began his work as a photographer for Mubarak: "Anybody else would've been happy to work for the president. I took it very differently; I believe you have to have the experience to know what I mean. My job was to cover certain occasions: to photograph the president on those occasions. And that's what I used to do: nothing more, nothing less. I didn't do anything to be ashamed of. I documented so much: the visits of world leaders, family events... But, aside from my job, my opinion about the politics of the former regime, I stated clearly in Vertigo" Indeed the cast of Vertigo is made up mostly of thinly veiled business moguls close to and high officials in Mubarak's regime, whose scandals it recounts. "These resemblances with characters in real life were a risk I decided to take. Vertigo was the backstage of all the political corruption. I felt it was my duty not to shy away from that." Mourad also portrayed the inferiority complex of police officers and other problems through the story of Kamal's sister Aya. But here as elsewhere the translation doesn't always manage to carry the full connotations of what's happening, since so much of it is rooted in culturally specific heritage. Still, Mourad insists, "There is no character in the novel that has the same beginning, middle and the end as its supposed real-life counterpart. This is after all fiction. You absorb life and you reinvent it differently. It is just that there are certain types through which you tell about a particular society. So you go ahead with that kind of thing" Meanwhile, there was a project planned to turn Vertigo into a TV series to be screened next Ramadan, starring Hind Sabri and directed by Othman Abu Laban; strangely enough, it seems that in order to give Sabri the biggest role, Kamal will become a female character on screen. Mourad was initially shocked about this, he says, but eventually accepted it �ê" after discussions with the cast and crew in which solutions were found to the resulting problems. "Finally I decided it wasn't all that weird as I remembered the film Wanted which was originally written to be played by actor Tom Cruise but was actually played by Angelina Jolie; the drama can produce solutions for anything, as I discovered; you just need to be flexible enough to achieve the transformation. And I appreciate the privileges of giving my novel a new kind of life. When people see the film of Bein Al-Qasreen, the novel by the world renowned Naguib Mahfouz," Mourad refers to Palace Walk, "that's totally different to the novel. Adapting a novel involves changing it; it's just that you have to preserve the core of it," he says. "Why do I get the feeling that a large part of what's driving you on is revenge, not a love of social justice? You're doing it because of your hatred for these people. I'm not saying you envy them, but every one of them has contributed to your unhappiness: a two-faced scumbag journalist botches the Vertigo investigation for no reason; a slap from Habib and abuse from Fathi el-Assal. I'm scared that we'll end up chasing after vengeance like Upper Egyptians on the trail of a blood feud." Thus Said Omar, Ahmed Kamal's friend in Vertigo, referring to journalist Alaa Gomaa, who is dismissed from his work in the Freedom newspaper, and later was assassinated after attempting to run Kamal's pictures of the crime in another newspaper. Recalling this scene, Mourad comments, "Writing should reflect character; I created the character of Ahmed Kamal with all this anger in order to justify him acting in the way he did." Nor does Mourad deny the resemblance between the protagonist and himself; they are both photographers, they both went through hard times in life and both wear glasses: "Ahmed Kamal overlaps with me on many occasions" Mourad describes the success of Vertigo as a gradual process that nonetheless made him happy; the translation of Vertigo opened up a new market and new horizons for the novel in various countries around the world: "Vertigo is now being translated into Italian and French as well." Vertigo took yet another turn after its English release as it seemed to illuminate the revolution. "I was happy that Vertigo, written four years before the uprising, had already sounded alarms." The revolution itself was a unique experience for Mourad: "During the revolution I followed developments like any other person; of course I couldn't participate in the protests in Tahrir square, but I'm totally convinced that I did my part in 2007 and 2010 in my two novels; on those 800 pages I set out all my ideas and beliefs. The novel's role is to offer explanations for reality, not solutions. I did not participate in the revolution but I was observing from a totally different place. People were happy on 11 February when Mubarak stepped down, but during the 18 days of the sit-in people were scared and in anticipation" Mourad expressed his contentment that the country may now finally change; Egypt may now have a president who will only be in office for one or two terms at the most. "I was thrilled to realise that the people had the conscience to organise and commence with the great uprising despite all the drawbacks involved. There is a great price to pay for freedom; we had to tear down Egypt so that we could rebuild; we had to put up with the aftermath of what we did"
