In this corner, Al Jazeera Net opens a space for female writers and writers to talk about the event or incident that changed their lives, and made them poets, novelists or retribution as well as dramatists, translators or even publishers, contrary to the expectations of family or friends.
At the same time, this angle is a window for the reader and follower to get to know an intimate and perhaps secret part of different creators in the ways and methods of thinking, life and writing.
Today, our Iraqi novelist and novelist, Mohamed Hiawi, was born in the city of Nasiriyah in 1965, graduated from the Institute of Administration in 1984, worked in the field of journalism as an editor in the cultural section of Al-Gomhoria newspaper, then as editor-in-chief. His first novel, "Gaps in Water" (1983), was published by Baghdad's Cultural Affairs House, then his novel "Fatima Al-Khadra" won the prize for the best Iraqi novel in 1985, and it was banned from publication for condemning the war.
His first fictional collection, "A Lighted Room by Fatima," was published in 1986 in the Arab Horizons House in Baghdad. His novel "Tawaf Mawtal" won the Iraqi novel prize, and it was published in 1988 by the House of Cultural Affairs in Baghdad. Then he published the series "One Thousand and One Nights for Children" in the year 1990 by Dar Or.
He left Iraq in 1992, resided in Jordan (1992-1995), and worked in the press field.
His story "A Lightened Room for Fatimah" was translated into English in 1996, and published in Spain.
He left Jordan for the political refugee in the Netherlands in 1996, studied the Dutch language, then graphic design and graphic, and obtained a higher diploma and a master's in the architecture of the Latin letter.
His third novel, Khan Al Shabandar (2015), and the fourth “House of Sudan” (2017) were published by Dar Al-Adab.
His fictional collection, “A Bird Looks Like a Fish,” and his fifth novel, “The Biography of the Butterfly,” was published in 2018 by Shahriar’s house in Basra.
He worked as a designer and editor of cinema in the Dutch newspaper "Noordholland Dagblad" from 2000 to 2010. He also headed the editor of "World Cinema" published in the Dutch and Arabic languages until 2010. He is a member of the Dutch Writers Union and works as a professor of new graphics and journalism at the Graphic Institute of Amsterdam Since 2010, a trainer for new design and journalism "Cross Media" at the German Academy for Media Development.
Here is his testimony about the questions posed by Al-Jazeera Net.
Cowboys and reds
When I was ten years old, I was obsessed with making sculptures and reading the magazine "Flying Carpet". What was most inflaming my imagination in it was the ongoing struggle between cowboys and Native Americans in the interesting stories of the American West. At noon, I carry a large mass of free clay covered with a moist piece of jute, and I take it to the surface to embody my heroes in my own world that I have set up there. Dozens of horses, herds of cows, naughty gangsters, and Indian red chiefs who head their heads with wreaths of hawk feathers and paint their faces in red.
I used reeds, straw, and dried mud cubes. My world was growing day after day, month after month, until it turned into a large colony that extended on a good side of the roof of the house, which is shaded by a lush palm tree that grows in the courtyard next door to our house. Until that fateful day when my school certificate brought a first-grade failing in my English and mathematics subjects, and even though I had another chance to pass the second round exam, my father went up to the surface and crushed my entire world, squandering the efforts of long months of tedious work that I did not He was not without a clear talent at the time.
That my world was not aware of that before its destruction except Fatima, the neighbor's daughter, who was looking at her head amazed as she contemplated my small creatures and their accuracy, and she started crying for three consecutive days, while I contented myself with concealing my burial and containing my grief, as I felt its moment as if my small chest had A big truck squatted him, and I decided from that moment to retreat inside me, and I started looking for an alternative that no one could reach to establish my fictional worlds and simulate what I read from magazines and books, so the stories that I imagined and build their worlds in my head were far from my father's anger, the only problem that I faced was How will Fatima, the neighbor's daughter, be able to see these worlds, and after a lengthy discussion across the roof fence, I suggested that I write it in writing. From that moment on, I started my story with stories.
Worlds do not reach the fury of my father
My mom had noticed my selflessness and isolation with my books and magazines, and she asked me more than once about my Turkish reason for my previous hobby in making my clay worlds, and offered me to protect her from my father's anger if it eased me, so I told her at the time that I found another way to build these worlds in a faraway place that could not My father reached him in the event of his anger, and was amazed at the idea, but she was very enthusiastic about it, especially since she was a good reader of magazines and a follower of foreign films that were shown on TV. Thus, my stories continued to evolve and develop constantly.
But up until that point, Fatima was my only reader who was captivated by what I write, and my mother was engaged in discussion after discussion with my father in order to let me read and write, and she provided me with protection and everything necessary to continue my talent that I believed in very early, and when I became middle school, my teacher admired One of my stories and decided to send it to a friend working in a newspaper, and after a few days surprised me carrying the newspaper in which my first story was published, "A ray of hope", and my view of the world changed completely from that moment on.
In the evening, my mom turned the newspaper in front of my father, who was relaxing and drinking tea .. "Look ... your son's name is published in the newspaper ... Did I not tell you that this boy is different? .. Now you will realize that the truth was with me when I protected it and I am proud of it." My father looked at the newspaper without interest, read the title of the story and his name combined with my first name, then quickly threw it aside with a twist and said, "What does it mean? Are we going to eat bread with this published story?" So I felt sad, melting my soul and destroying myself.
But my mother later told me that he loved me but rather I took him with honor, and he is happy with him now, but he is the type who cannot express his love and happiness, so I believed her, and so my mother continued to harass him whenever a new text was published to me, and every time my father throws the newspaper or magazine aside. Sometimes he suffices with agitation and sometimes makes sarcastic comments about literature and culture in general. Until the day came when one of my stories won a valuable prize and they gave me a good amount of money, so I gave him joy to my mother who embraced me and accepted me, and it was the first time in my life to give money to my family, after I had been for many years taking my daily expenses from them and exhausting my father With my requests.
Heavy tenderness
And in the evening, when my father came back from work, my mother put the money that I gave her in his hand, and my father looked at him tellingly and asked about his source, and she proudly told him that it is a reward for the stories that I write, so my father was surprised at the first thing as if it was not certified, then he said to me, "Do they give you Money for those stories you really post? " I answered him yes, he said: "But it is a large amount?" I said, “Yes. It is a reward for a good story that won an important award.”
My mother used to look at him and smile with love while he was satisfied with dividing the amount into two parts, keeping half and giving the second half to my mother to provide it to me if I needed any expenses. And at night, when I made sleep, he came close to me, kissed me on my forehead, caressed my jealousy, and tightened the cover around me.
In subsequent years, after the books were issued to me and I turned to another person totally different from my brothers and sisters, my mother kept proud of what she had accomplished and boasted to her sisters and relatives, and when I visit them, she is keen to make the best food for me and urges my sisters and wives of my brothers to exaggerate in celebrating me as she says " But this is my son, the writer and the well-known writer visiting me, this is the result of the fatigue of the years in which I saw what I was unable to achieve due to my preoccupation with raising you, this is different from all of you who insist on raising his plate with his hand after eating to wash it by himself. You all owe him your happiness. "