No going back: where most creative writers dare not tread

What could have been

Another powerful motivator for distancing oneself from published work is the fear of discovering its flaws, or worse: realising that the text no longer belongs to the author. Toni Morrison, the Nobel Laureate and author of Beloved, spoke candidly about this. She avoided them out of fear she would see "what could have been better". For her, writing was a pursuit of perfection. Once released into the world, her control over it is over, and with that loss comes a necessary detachment. The novel had fulfilled its journey with her. It had fledged the nest, now an entity in its own right.

English novelist and poet George Orwell shared a similar perspective, as reflected in his classic book, 1984. In a letter to a friend, he confessed that he could no longer bring himself to read it after publication, as it encapsulated "all his fears and dreams" at a particular point in time.

To revisit it would be to confront that version of himself, one that had since passed. This suggests that a novel serves as a mirror of the author's inner world at the moment of its creation. As the writer evolves, confronting that reflection can evoke a sense of estrangement, an encounter with a self that no longer exists.

Severing a bond

Writing is an intimate act, akin to an emotional relationship between the author and the text. When a novel is complete, the writer may feel as though a profound connection has come to an end. Returning to it might stir emotions they no longer wish to confront.

Such was the experience of American author Harper Lee, best known for To Kill a Mockingbird. In a rare interview, she said she never reread it after publication. She had "given it everything," she explained. To revisit it would be like trying to reclaim something that had already run its course.

Like Orwell, writers often perceive a novel as anchored to a particular moment in time. Once that moment passes, returning to it can prove difficult. The French author Marcel Proust, famed for In Search of Lost Time, believed that writing encapsulates a specific mental and emotional state reflective of a distinct phase in the writer's life.

Proust, who devoted years to crafting his magnum opus, chose not to revisit it once completed. He saw it as a closed chapter on a personal journey towards understanding memory and time. To reread it, he felt, would be like retracing steps already taken, an unnecessary exercise, given that the journey had fulfilled its purpose.

Looking ahead

Many writers avoid rereading their novels because they prefer to look ahead, rather than dwell on the past. British author Ian McEwan, known for Atonement, said he seldom revisits earlier works because "writing is always about the next novel". For him, the completion of one book signals the start of a new creative endeavour. Returning to older work risks distracting or impeding that forward momentum.

This view reflects the inherently dynamic nature of writing, a perpetually renewing process in which each finished novel serves merely as a step along a broader creative path. Yet from a psychological perspective, avoiding past novels may also serve as a defence mechanism. After investing so much of themselves into a manuscript, writers may become anxious about confronting their words, fearing judgment or disillusionment.

The psychologist Carl Jung described "the shadow" as a facet of the unconscious aspects of a person's personality that they repress or deny. A novel, then, can become a mirror to that shadow. By avoiding their own texts, authors might be shielding themselves from this confrontation, leaving the work to be judged by others instead.

Ultimately, novelists' reluctance to revisit their work after publication is not a matter of caprice, but rather a window into the deeply layered relationship between creativity and identity. From Allende and Hemingway's emotional depletion, to Morrison and Orwell's fear of imperfection, Lee and Proust's sense of closure, and McEwan's forward-looking stance, each instance reveals a delicate interplay of artistic fatigue, psychological self-preservation, and a deep-seated impulse to let go and begin anew.

Once completed, a novel becomes an autonomous creation, released into the wild, to be interpreted and owned by its readers, while the author turns toward the next blank page, drawn once again to the challenge of creation. In the end, this impulse not to look back may capture the very essence of writing itself: an act of giving life to something outside oneself, and in doing so, creating a space within that must be filled anew.

Arab voices

Naguib Mahfouz, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988, noted in rare interviews that he seldom re-reads his novels after their publication, except when strictly necessary, such as for film or theatrical adaptations. Speaking to Egypt's Al-Hilal magazine, he said writing a novel like The Cairo Trilogy demanded immense effort, and that he preferred to turn his attention to new projects rather than revisit past works. 

For Mahfouz, each novel represented a particular phase in his personal and social awareness. Once completed, he felt it belonged more to the readers than to himself. This reflects his desire to preserve his creative energy for future undertakings, rather than expend it on retrospection. His modest disposition and deep engagement with the rhythms of everyday life led him to regard a published novel as a self-sustaining entity, no longer requiring his intervention.

Radwa Ashour, the Egyptian novelist and critic renowned for The Woman from Tantoura and Granada: The Complete Trilogy, saw writing as a means of chronicling both personal and collective histories, particularly in the context of Palestinian and Arab struggles, indicating that she did not return to her novels after publication since each one was "a piece of her soul," left to endure with the readers.

In one interview, she described writing as "an attempt to understand pain and loss". Once a novel was finished, she said, it became a living memory that she chose not to revisit, fearing the pain of rekindling those emotions. Ashour's reticence to reread her work reveals a profound and deeply personal connection with her texts. Writing was her way of articulating identity and memory. Returning meant confronting wounds that had not yet healed, making it psychologically necessary to let the work go.

Likewise, Ghassan Kanafani, the Palestinian novelist and short-story writer known for "Men in the Sun" and "Returning to Haifa," also avoided revisiting his published works. According to memoirs by his wife, Anni Kanafani, he would often say that once a text was written, it became "a message sent," with no need to look at it again.

Kanafani's stance may have been driven by a fear of confronting flaws or by the unsettling recognition that the work had failed to capture the full weight of the brutal realities he had witnessed. Assassinated in 1972, his unwavering commitment to writing as a form of resistance perhaps led him to see each book as a completed chapter of struggle, one that demanded no backwards glance.