Renowned British writers returned back to Syria in a fever of expectation
Syria-UK, Culture, 3/23/2001

"I returned to Syria in a fever of expectation. Thirty-five years had passed since I was last in this country," said renowned British writer Robert Irwin in a statement to Arabic News.

The 1960s were, of course, the heyday of the hippy hitchhiker. Paperback novels by the American beat writer, Jack Kerouac, celebrating hard travelling and nomadic mysticism, were in my rucksack. So was 'Hasan', an Orientalist verse drama by James Elroy Flecker (a fomer British consul in Beirut).

Syria in the 1960s still felt and looked strikingly medieval. and signs of the, then, relatively recent French mandate were very much in evidence. (This was even more the case in Lebanon, where I felt that I was travelling through a French department). Though on my return visit to Syria, I felt a that I was travelling back thirty-five years through time, as I walked through the souk in Aleppo, which has hardly changed at all since the 1960s, in general the country has changed out of all recognition and signs of modernization are everywhere in evidence. In the 1960s there was no such thing as a truly smart, modern hotel in Syria, but on my current visit I stayed at a series of superbly comfortable and well-appointed hotels.

As for his experience in Syria and the Middle East region Mr Irwin added: In 1965 I had traveled through the Middle East in search of adventure.

I carried little notebooks everywhere with me and I was looking for materials on which to base a future career as a writer. In March 2001, however, I returned to Syria as a published novelist under the auspices of the British Council. Given this context and this sponsorship, I suppose that, in some sense or another, I should be representing British literature, or at least the contemporary British novel. Yet when I contemplate the immense diversity of contemporary British novel writing, the impossible nature of any such role becomes apparent: A.S. Byatt's dense and carefully wrought meditations on literature and science, Will Self's scurrilous black comedies, Alain de Botton's lightly philosophic, lightly erotic romances, Jeanette Winterstone's feminist fantasies, Charles Palliser's puzzle novels, David Lodge's intellectual campus romps É It would take a solid year's lecturing to sketch out even the broad outlines of contemporary novel writing in Britain. Thousands of novels are published in Britain every year. In the end, when I talk at Syrian universities, I have to concentrate on my own novels. I have published six so far, on quite diverse topics, including dreams, housework, political terrorism, occultism and the Surrealist philosophy of passionate love. I have also published non-fiction books on 'The Thousand and One Nights', Islamic Art, the history of the Bahri Mamluks in Egypt and Syria and, most recently, an anthology of classical Arabic literature in English translation.

He said that although thousands of novels are published in Britain every year, very few of those novels have been translated from Arabic.

Naturally Naguib Mahfouz's novels are quite well-known in Britain and there are a handful of other writers in Arabic who have a following, including Tayib Saleh and Hannan al-Shaykh. A few publishing houses, like Quartet and al-Saqi specialize in publishing Arabic novels in English translation. However, British awareness of Arabic literature, both medieval and modern, is deplorably low. Although a handful of British writers (including myself) have done their best, in books and articles, to combat this situation, it is a bit like trying to chip away at an iceberg with a toothpick. This is one of the things I have to explain in the question-and-answer sessions that follow my lectures. In the Damascus headquarters of the British Council and at the University of Lattakia, I lectured on 'The Unreliable Narrator in Literature and My Novels'. At the Universities of Damascus and Homs I lectured on "Fate and Coincidence in Life, Literature and My Novels'. (In both lectures, I drew upon examples from Arabic literature, as well as from Western novels, as it seems wrong to compartmentalize the two cultures.) Everywhere I spoke the audiences were gratifyingly large and the question-and-answer sessions were lengthy and lively, with a bemusingly wide range of issues being raised by members of the audience. Since the university English literature syllabuses in Syria tend to stop at D.H.

Lawrence or Joseh Conrad, I suppose that I may have appeared to the students as a sort of science-fiction figure, time travelling back from Britain's literary future. There was a switchback quality to the sequence of lecture, question-and-answer session and then dinner with members of the university staff, for the intellectual debate inevitably ran on into the mealtimes. It was pleasant to be reintroduced to the great range of Syria meze and other dishes. I am grateful to Dr Jaque Toumajian of Damascus university, Dr Jalal Othman of Tishreen university, Dr Ahmad Kotob of Aleppo university, Dr Ahmad Dahman, Dr Hilmi Ahmad and Dr Abdulmoutaleb of Al-Baath university for their hospitality and their conversation, which was both learned and amusing (particularly the Homsi jokes).

As for ancient sites he visited in Syria Mr Irwin said: though I have enjoyed the cut and thrust of debate in the lecture hall and the dining table and my walks through the souks of the bustling cities, I have also found time to visit the blessedly peaceful ruins of Ugarit, Palmyra and Crac des Chevaliers.

Previous Stories:
  Syrian- British active Cultural co-operation   (2/2/2001)
  Six British artists display in Damascus for the first time in 40 years   (11/8/2000)
  British Council director: A wide and growing interest to retain cultural links with Syria   (3/25/2000)

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