The novelist Jabour Douaihy believes that the new Corona virus will open the door to new ideas and nurture literary fiction just as wars in history.
Douaihy, 71, who holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Paris III, is spending a period of stone in the town of Ehden, the summer resort in northern Lebanon, to which he went "prematurely" this year, for her pleasant climate.
"I am evading writing about this stage ... I believe that writing fiction needs some time, so we cannot write about an event that still exists," said the Lebanese creator.
This is similar to the experience of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990): “I do not think that the Lebanese war was written about it until it was cooled and put in the context of some process, and it became possible to use it in writing .. As long as the event interacts before our eyes, it is difficult to take its place and turn into a source of inspiration. ».
But the epidemic will, after a while, enter into "literary fiction" and turn into narrative material and a "source of speech." It will become a journal of literature, "according to Douaihy, who adds:" Certainly this pandemic will enter the general narrative scene, in the imagination of mankind, as wars entered, as the plague entered, (...) and the various pandemics that appeared in the world. "
And the Lebanese writer continues in an interview via the "Zoom" application with "Agence France-Presse": "Senior writers talked about these pandemics and used them as a symbol, such as Eugene Ionesco (a rhinoceros play that tells the story of a fictional pandemic through which the writer criticizes political systems), and Albert Camus ( The plague novel, published in 1947, is set in the Algerian city of Oran, and constitutes a summary of Camus' philosophy of futility.
On the other hand, Douaihy considers that the epidemic "will leave scars and effects on the mind, thought and imagination in particular." He recounts that he was not "uncomfortable" from the stone he committed to as part of the measures to prevent the virus imposed by the authorities in Lebanon, although he initially found it difficult to adapt and focus on reading and writing.
The owner of the novels of “The Americans’ Neighborhood ”and“ Rain of June ”(and I reached the short list of the International Prize for the Arabic Novel known as the Arab Booker Prize in 2008) and“ Homeless People ”, stresses that he does not expect radical changes in the levels of politics, society and economy, after the epidemic receded in the world . Douaihy questions a comprehensive change in the level of human behavior after the crisis: "It is always ruled that the aftermath of this crisis is not the same as before, but I am not sure that human behavior will change strategically." In his opinion, the crisis will produce “changes and new things entering our life, just as wars are, as a result of our need for it.” "I have a tendency to say that humanity will absorb this epidemic, and continue to sabotage it (the environment) somewhere, even if I expect an ecological tendency", as "interest in the environmental field will be strengthened after this pandemic," he explains.
Lebanese novelist:
The virus will leave scars and effects on mind and imagination in particular.
Mankind will absorb the epidemic, but will continue to destroy it (the environment) somewhere.