CAIRO - As Egyptians aspire to a new era of equality, dignity and prosperity, the nation's literary community has its own vision of how the new Egypt should be. “What happened on January 25 will create a more humanitarian, politicised and social atmosphere, as it is impossible to think that the previous prevailing situation of corruption and servitude before the revolution could return,” Egyptian writer Mohamed el-Makhzangy says. However, he has his own fears. “I see that there are many conspiracies, that aim at aborting the new way of thinking within Egyptian society, but almost certainly these schemes will fail,” he argues. Regarding literature, el-Makhzangy thinks the Egyptian literature will be brimming with optimism in the post revolution era. “The major achievement [the January 25 revolution] was backed by the spirit of the majority of Egyptians, despite malicious endeavours aimed at undermining this revolution, and this will be reflected in forthcoming works,” he predicts. Ibrahim Aslan, another Egyptian story writer, believes that the epoch-making events in Egypt cannot be handled directly in literature because this way of handling them would lack expression. “Such events are something spiritual, inspiring writers to express something relevant but indirectly,” he says. “Novelists, he explains, are motivated to write about such events but they need to get involved in this revolution to appreciate the true meaning of what has been done by the young people in Al-Tahrir Square, the epicentre of protests against long-serving president Hosni Mubarak. It is enough to say that these youths have a sense of love for their homeland, and they require the whole world to respect them together with their country,” he told the Arabic Language Radio and TV Magazine. Author Zaky Salem discloses that he is writing the diaries of the Egyptian revolution. “This will be a book with a narrative about our glorious people, battles and martyrs before and after January 25 until we make Egypt a democratic country,” he says. Salem elaborated, “Before every revolution, there are works of some literati that have anticipated these revolutions. Egyptian noble Laureate Naguib Mahfouz was the author of ‘Al-Harafish' [the riffraff], that recounted the revolution of people against an unjust ruler, who symbolised oppression and tyranny. Also, Taha Hussein wrote ‘Al-Muazbun Fel Ard' [the wronged people on earth] that embodied injustice against Egyptians.”
