Young writers: “The life of young writers in Egypt”

Interviewer: Salma Elkoumi and Rawan Elbadry

Interviewee: Mariam Besar
Date: 9-4-2022

In 2017, the 1,000-Writer Initiative was launched to support young writers. It’s aim was to
change that perspective by support­ing hundreds of Egyptian and Arab writers.The project was
initiated by Mahmoud Haggag, the head of the Free Media Syndicate in Egypt, to help Arab
writers market their man­uscripts and turn some of them into films, television series or theatrical
performances.

Mariam Besar, a 20-year old young writer who has just completed a lifelong dream: writing her
first novel. Her dream seemed to sometimes fade as she tinkered with her text but, finally, she
had a novel under her name.

Being a writer takes a passionate person to express their feelings into a piece of paper, and
requires some important elements.

MB: “Okay, I believe that the most important elements of a good writer should be careful
person, he should care about choice of what the world says in his writing, he was the one
he was, you should be careful about the ideas he's choosing during writing any novel or
any small piece of writing, even if it's a small post on Facebook. But like being careful is
very important because it will reflect your personality and reflect how they will reflect
your idea in a very good way.”(0:33)

Despite any challenges she faced, Mariam continued to find a way to play her favorite life-long
hobby. She claims that it’s shaped who she is as a person and she can’t quit playing even though
it takes up most of her time.

MB: “Yes, somehow I faced challenges, because I should interact with people while
reading this. Like, I think this story, it was during quarantine, I was not interacting with
any people. And I was writing a lot of characters and a lot of conversations. And I want
to be interacting with people with different mindsets and different perspectives and
different social, social standards. But I didn't have the time I didn't have the ability,
because of COVID-19. But somehow, I succeeded in writing those conversations. And
people told me very good comments about that.” (0:33)

Leila Hirschfeld, the account manager of BookBub, and the author of middle grade biographies,
claims that Social media can be a useful part of an author’s platform, helping them connect with
readers, fellow writers, and the publishing community. But deciding what content to post next
can be a struggle.

MB: “Social media is very important to the author, I was advertising my book. At first, I
was only sharing, sharing some quotes, then I started to share, like the cover of the book
was some different quotes. I will not I was not share very deep details from the book.
Because it will not attract people to read it and buy it. I was only sharing the very
attractive quotes from the book that will make people want to read it.”(0:31)

Publishing means and opportunities did not seem to be lacking. Public and private publishing
houses compete with digital media for new works to publish and their numbers are growing.
There are exceptions to the pattern. Some publishers have a genuine interest in revitalizing the
world of books but the majority of private publishers are interested only in maximizing profits;
culture is secondary.

MB: “Okay, as the book was published by a poor publishing houses and instruction
publishing house, as a lot of bookstores, it was available issue I think, last year with
another versus your bus wasn't available last year, and other bookstores like around
Cairo and around Egypt, Egypt in general, also in what countries? It was. Now, like this
week, it's in the Algeria book fair. And also it was at the Dubai Book Fair.” (0:36)

As a result of misconceptions, writing has developed a positive image. You have nothing to gain
and nothing to give except as you distill and purify ephemeral experience into quiet,
searching, touching little stories, and so give your uncommon readers a chance to join you in
the solidarity of pain and love and the vision of human possibility.

Salma Elkoumi and Rawan Elbadry, A-U-C Radio.