The Abu Dhabi International Book Fair hosted the Algerian writer Abdel Wahab Issawi, who won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2020 for his novel The Spartan Diwan, in a virtual session broadcast on the exhibition channel on YouTube.
The Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi is organizing a series of virtual dialogue sessions, after this year’s session was postponed from the Abu Dhabi International Fair due to the global health crisis, as a group of writers, authors and artists dialogue with the public from their homes.
Issawi expressed - at the beginning of the session - his pride in winning his novel "The Spartan Court" with the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (Booker), as it is considered one of the most important literary awards for novels, because of the distinction of the method of arbitration and media promotion, adding that the award of this award does not stop at winning only, but rather The victory marks the beginning of a new start for the winning text, as it opens new horizons for it, including translation into other languages.
Issawi believes that the historical novel has a complementary role to history, as most of the recorded history of the Arab world was written according to a specific methodology, as it is in most cases a political history that narrates the facts of countries that have risen and fallen, and have not been written within a societal or scientific context. The historical narrative comes to reveal marginal events that shed light on the views of individuals of that time, who formed a livelihood for these countries, away from political trends. The session touched on Issawi's elegant use of eloquent words and vocabulary to describe the events in his novel, which illustrates his great passion in Arabic, despite being an electrical mechanical engineer. He said that he derives this deep passion from his attachment to the books of Arab heritage and his writers, including Al-Jahiz, Abohyan Al-Tawhidi, ancient poets, narrative blogs and ancient Arab biographies, as he believes in the necessity of an intimate relationship linking the writer to the culture of the language in which he writes, as this relationship with the language in its composition and manifestations It is what makes a seasoned writer, not only in the artistic literary path, but also in scientific, medical, intellectual, and other written paths. The virtual sessions of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair have previously been hosted by Swedish behavioral expert Thomas Erickson, survival expert John Hudson, Ethiopian poet Lim Sesay and Annabel Carmel, a well-known author of children's cookbooks, environmental activist Stephen Ritz and film director. Saudi Arabia witnessed Amin.
Abdul Rahman Munif .. most influencers
On the most contemporary writers who influenced his writings and the formation of his literary idea, Abdel Wahab Issawi said that he is the late Abdel Rahman Munif, justifying that Munif always triumphs in his writings of an unidentified Arab figure, with multiple cultural features, which belong to a large space, while influenced by Algerian writers In each of Wasini Al-Araj, Abdul-Hamid bin Haddouqa, and Al-Taher Wattar.