By Mursi Saad El-Din A writer who is associated with Alexandria is DJ Enright. The first time I met DJ Enright was in Singapore on 31 October 1965, where he was a professor of English at the University of Singapore. When he knew I was Egyptian, he invited me to his place, where we talked about Egypt and his job as lecturer of English at Farouk I University, now Alexandria University. He gave me a signed copy of his collection of poems called The Old Adam and told me he was in the middle of writing a novel about life in Alexandria. Frankly speaking, until I met him I had known little, if anything, about DJ Enright. I discovered later that he was one of the well-known poets and novelists in England, with a dozen books to his name. I began to read his poems, trying to see how far his living in Alexandria had affected his writing. And sure enough, I found what I was looking for: two poems, one entitled Alexandrian and To Old Cavafy from a New Country. Like Durrell when Enright wrote about Alexandria, it was to him an extension of Greece. But, unlike Durrell his Alexandria was not a Greek city, but an Egyptian one with Greek flavour. Enright, as a university lecturer dealt with Egyptians, but could not help thinking in terms of Greek history. This is reflected in his poem Alexandrian: The free minds Tell us freely about their freedom, I myself prefer To face the fact of my freedom, And to speak from that. I have signed round robins. Protests against Caesar... I will continue. Habit dies hard But I know the truth of my unfreedom And I know that I myself am not An Overwhelming argument for free survival But I know those who are, A few who are, Without reproach or reservation. Which gives my speech a sentimental tinge... Enright worked in Egypt for three years, from 1947 until 1950. Egypt became the setting for his novel Academic Year. At that time Egyptian schools and universities had English teachers. It was almost a tradition, which started in 1926 when Robert Graves, the famous English poet, was appointed Professor of English Literature at the newly founded Egyptian University in Cairo. Robert Graves did not stay long in the job. He stayed just for one year and for purely personal reasons he did not continue. He was followed by Bonamy Dobree, who stayed and taught for three years. Among others, particularly during the Second World War, were Robin Fedden, Robert Liddell, PH Newby, Bernard Spencer and Terence Tiller. Enright arrived in Egypt in the wake of what he describes as "no longer the curiously Bohemian place of temporary intellectual exile conjured up by these names, to which one can add the non- university based but associated ones of Keith Douglas, Lawrence Durrell, Olivia Manning, RD Smith and several others." Those were like all novels written by English writers who lived in Egypt, Academic Year deals with the lives of Englishmen and English institutions in Egypt. Egyptian characters are secondary and they are there only present in as much as they have something to do with the main English characters. Maybe PH Newby is different since his novels involve Egyptians as much as English. But he will come later. The novel is about the lives of three characters, their work and their loves and their problems as well as their attitudes to the city and its people. But I am not really giving a critique of the novel. I want simply to reveal Enright's feelings about Alexandria and Egypt. All through the novel he shows deep and genuine understanding of Egypt and things Egyptian, of the manners and customs and the idiosyncrasies that govern the lives of Egyptians. This is why his Egyptian characters are real. In fact in many cases one can discover the actual people he writes about.
