"We meet"

on the margins of the biography

Dr..

Parvin Habib

January 24, 2023

Why is a young man under forty in a hurry to write his autobiography or memoirs?

This question stopped me while I was reading and writing in the past few days about Prince Harry's book "The Reserve".

Regardless of the prince's motives, the need to share our experiences and memories with others is as ingrained in the human psyche as curiosity is ingrained in the soul of the recipient.

Therefore, this type of book finds popularity, especially what is written by famous people.

I do not deny that I have a special passion for autobiographies and notes, and my personal library contains a good number of them. It is like meeting people, some of which make you happy or motivate you, while others disappoint or frustrate you.

Prince Harry's memoirs, for example, left me divided between sympathy for him over the tragedy of his mother's murder and the family's implicit rejection of his wife, Megan, and her mistreatment, and my discomfort with exposing his family's secrets and his attempt to destroy her image, which represents a lot to her people.

And when I compare my feeling with a biography I recently read of the late writer Muhammad Aboul Gheit, entitled: “I am coming, O light,” I find the difference vast. I knew even before reading the book that it was painful from what I heard about it, so I avoided acquiring it while I wandered around the libraries of Cairo, but this refrain faded as I saw The book is in the airport library, and it was my companion on the return trip to Dubai.

I was in a lot of pain reading what I considered the last will of the dying person, but I finished it while admiring the courage of this young man who faced his fate with courage, and sometimes with sarcasm.

It is a feeling I felt when I prepared a while ago reading the book “Al-Ayyam” by Taha Hussein, and how this blind and obscure child coming from Upper Egypt became a minister, filling the world’s hearing and sight, and the dean of Arabic literature.

Indeed, his talk in "Al-Ayyam" about his wife, Susan, is what motivated me to complete my book, "I Seen With Her Eyes: The Woman in the Life and Literature of Taha Hussein."

A sentence in a person's memoirs may inspire me more than any other matter, because I consider it, as the perfumers say about their herbs, to be "true and proven."

Perhaps my personal curiosity and curiosity are the first thresholds of learning, and the nature of my job in talk shows, which in one aspect is a visual blogging of the guest’s biography, endeared me to this type of books.

I used to - and still do - consider my guests, with their beautiful or sometimes disturbing experiences, as living books from which I benefit from knowledge, experience and depth.

This is what the memoirs give us, even if their purpose is to “kill the father.”

• I knew even before reading Muhammad Aboul Gheit's book “I am Coming, O Light” that it was painful from what I heard about it, so I avoided buying it while I was wandering around the libraries of Cairo, but this reluctance faded away...

@DrParweenHabib1

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