May Telmissany: we lack a distinct Arab literary identity

What circumstances led you to write Everyone Says I Love You?

I wrote it during the pandemic, completing it in one continuous stretch of six chapters over roughly six months. The first chapter poured out in just 24 hours—without pause, rest, or sleep. What preoccupied me was the idea of love at a distance: love for a spouse or lover, and love for one's homeland. I was equally concerned with the question of marital infidelity and the many ways a husband might justify it—chief among them physical separation from his family and the desire for multiple relationships with different women—all while clinging to his marriage out of a need for possession and control.

I wanted to connect this with another kind of 'betrayal'—the accusation often directed at immigrants who leave their homelands in search of better opportunities. The stories I have heard during my years in Canada convinced me of the need to draw that link. My aim was not to pass moral judgment, but to explain the material causes and to show why the mistress, whether a woman or the alternative homeland, accepts only the fragments of affection she is offered. Behind this lies a utilitarian logic, and I wanted to reveal it while also portraying immigrants, men and women alike, as neither angels nor demons, but human beings who falter and rise again in their own ways.

Why did you choose that particular moment to confront the Arab immigrant's reality, despite having lived in Canada for years? And to what extent can one trust memory and nostalgia in shaping narrative?

The timing was crucial because the pandemic itself unsettled relationships between spouses, which is how I imagined the novel's ending. The final question posed is: What comes next? What happens if a couple is forced to live under the same roof again? And, by extension, what if immigrants were compelled to return to their homelands permanently? There is no direct answer, but in such an exceptional moment, it is a question that naturally imposes itself on both the characters and the readers.

As for nostalgia, I find that some characters, especially Nourhan Abdel Hamid, who is dearest to me in this text, fall into a bottomless pit, driven by an overwhelming rationality that governs their choices. Her yearning for Alexandria, although she was born and raised in Montreal, is tinged with a kind of orientalism. She visits the city annually to see her father and brother, yet her mental image of it continues to dictate her relationship with her father's homeland, even as she clings to her secure life in Canada.

In contrast, memory for the Syrian character Bassam al-Haik stems from a deep, unrelenting longing for Aleppo, a city he left 40 years ago and never returned to, knowing full well that the ancient city he remembers no longer exists in reality. In his case, memory selectively preserves what suits the moment of nostalgia but also retreats when confronted with reality, stripped of romance, and reduced to rational recognition.

If the novel's title mocks how easily the characters say 'love,' why do you treat them with such empathy?

Because I make every effort to avoid passing moral judgments, of good or evil, on my characters. Da'ina Suleiman, for instance, is an amalgam of many opportunistic people I have met. Yet despite her opportunism, she retains human qualities that save her from complete moral collapse. As an Arab immigrant born in Canada, much like Nourhan, her opportunism becomes material for analysis rather than condemnation. I leave judgment to the reader; my task is understanding—not justifying betrayal, as some might hastily assume.

Nor do I necessarily exalt virtue, except insofar as it reveals the depths of a character. You will not find a single one-dimensional figure in my writing: No one is wholly good or wholly evil. Transcending this binary is what makes love a complex, even problematic, subject that is one worth revisiting time and again, just as it is a person's right to love more than once.

You have said before that you dislike linguistic acrobatics and verbal showmanship. How do you apply this in your writing?

I try to be as sparing with language as possible. I don't, for example, indulge in metaphors for their own sake. Nor do I attempt to 'philosophise' prose; doing so would feel like playing a role at odds with my creative instincts. Above all, I consider myself a storyteller, weaving tales as truthfully as I can. Dialogue, for instance, is part of this deliberate pursuit of realism in the novel. Through storytelling, I can raise questions that matter to me—about existence, and about writing itself. My goal is not to dazzle with flourishes extraneous to the novel as I understand it. Whether I succeed or fail does not concern me; what matters is the attempt itself, and the creative drive that sustains it. 

You live abroad, yet memory continually draws you back to write about your life in Egypt. Have you not been able to escape your memories?

Can any of us truly escape them? In my view, the Syrian character Bassam al-Haik most fully embodies that impossibility. He feels like a jellyfish, with memories multiplying like shoals of tiny fish—sometimes surfacing, sometimes regenerating out of nothing. If humans were bereft of memory, they would invent it, simply to sustain their existence through time and to exercise some measure of control over the places they inhabit.

Your novels are both highly imaginative and deeply realistic. How do you achieve that balance?

I have drawn on people and situations I have encountered over 28 years of living in Canada, which gives the work its realism and grounds it in the lived experiences of Arab immigrants, from racism to the search for employment and material stability. At the same time, I have sought to avoid clichés—the predictable narratives so often written about immigrants from the perspective of our homelands. Reality, however, is far more intricate than we imagine, and at times it even surpasses fiction.

Today's novel seems increasingly adaptable to the shifting Arab reality, engaging with its transformations and adopting new techniques in pursuit of a distinct Arab identity. How do you view this?

I agree. There is even a move beyond the conventional form of the novel. I see an entire current of itinerant writers, those compelled by circumstances in their homelands to migrate, writing about their experiences in alternative countries. They scrutinise these new environments just as they critique the decline and corruption of their homelands, and this critical gaze enriches their literature.

Another widespread trend is the adaptation of the novel to present Arab realities. Yet much of this will not endure: it may win readers today, but a century from now it may well be forgotten. Including myself in this reflection, I would say that we have not yet established a distinctly Arab literary identity, except, perhaps, in the use of language. In terms of form and technique, we remain in a phase of imitation, shackled by the achievements of the European, Asian, and global novel. The world is decades ahead of us. A free world produces free literature.

You began writing in the 1990s. Tell us about your journey…

This journey has given me faith in humanity, even in the face of its harrowing decline and resounding collapse. It has been a journey of connection rather than severance. I think true nobility lies in connection, even if life seldom returns the favour. Yet life has also been generous, endowing me with a renewable energy—perhaps innate, perhaps forged through years of persistence and effort.

Each time I have fallen into what felt like a bottomless abyss, a path opened before me, an opportunity to rise and float back to the surface. At times, I leaned on writing; at others, on the support of loved ones, near and far. Every fall has carried within it the possibility of ascent, much like Sisyphus, much like life itself.

Your work often feels autobiographical, yet writers usually turn to memoir last. Why did you begin with it?

It is an autobiography born of imagination rather than absolute truth. Much of what I write is tied to fragments of my daily life, perhaps akin to the work of the French novelist Annie Ernaux. Yet fiction outweighs reality in my writing. A personal experience becomes a springboard for exploring its possible trajectories. I often ask myself: What if?

In Dunyazad, for example, the death of a foetus was a real event. But it opened the door to another question: What if the loss of a daughter were also a gateway to other forms of loss—like losing a home, or a friend—neither of which I actually experienced? In Heliopolis, I imagined the life of a girl named Micky, born like me in 1965 and raised in Cairo's Heliopolis, yet placed in contexts entirely separate from my own biography, especially in her relationships with the women of her family, most of them fictional. As for A Walled Paradise, it is a diary of travel, exile, return, and wandering: scenes from daily life interwoven with the life of ideas, bound together by the theme of movement. 

Do some writers keep going out of fear of stopping—and do you share that obsession?

Yes, I live with this obsession and navigate it in various ways. I now know that I cannot write with strict regularity. I also know I might draft dozens of pages, tear them up, and rewrite them several times until I am satisfied. What I seek above all is renewal. I do not reproduce the texts of others, whether literary, cinematic, or artistic. I dislike imitation and facile writing. I want first to astonish myself, before astonishing the reader.

Perhaps today's readers may not perceive this, but I rely on the long history of literature to separate the valuable from the trivial. Even if that distinction is never made in my lifetime, or never at all, I am content with my pursuit of renewal, and with the authenticity of that pursuit.

In 2021, you were awarded the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2023, Everyone Says I Love You was long-listed for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Can awards become a trap and a distraction for writers?

They can indeed become a trap, because of media attention and public pressure. Some writers never escape the predicament awards place them in. Receiving the order brought brief satisfaction, serving only as a nod to my present cultural relevance.

The future of my writing remains in the realm of the unknown. I have no control over it except through the effort I devote to completing a project I began more than 30 years ago. If I finish it, I will be happy. But its completion depends not on awards, only on whether I am satisfied with what I have written.

What are your upcoming projects?

I am working on a novel in French, which I began in 2004 and have yet to finish. I hope to complete it before I turn 60. Another project underway is my own translation of Everyone Says I Love You into French for publication in Montreal. I chose to undertake this translation myself, since the French translators I once relied upon are no longer available. It is a new kind of adventure, one that fits my restless and exploratory spirit as a writer. Let us see what it brings.