{"id":604,"date":"2010-11-01T11:13:46","date_gmt":"2010-11-01T07:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=604"},"modified":"2011-01-27T11:20:46","modified_gmt":"2011-01-27T07:20:46","slug":"dr-naif-al-mutawa-book-censorship-is-killing-arabic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/middle-east-art\/middle-east-literature\/dr-naif-al-mutawa-book-censorship-is-killing-arabic\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Mutawa: Book Censorship is Killing Arabic"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Dr. Naif Al Mutawa\u2014creator of extremely successful comic series The 99<\/em><\/a>\u2014had long dreamt of creating comics. When he was in his twenties in his native Kuwait, he wrote and published his first two books. Both were in English.He wrote in English, he said, because as a younger man\u2014before he\u2019d become exposed to Taha Hussein, Naguib Mahfouz, other greats\u2014\u201dNothing really grabbed me; nothing was enjoyable [in Arabic].\u201d<\/p>\n

His first two books were relatively successful, he said. Then: \u201cBook three got stopped [by censors] and I quit writing at the age of 27. Had I changed a few words, they would have allowed it.\u201d But Al Mutawa was offended by the censorship and didn\u2019t want to change a few words. So \u201cI quit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Al Mutawa, who spoke last night to a meager but enthusiastic crowd at the Sharjah International Book Fair, came down firmly against censorship:<\/p>\n

In the name of preserving culture, book censorship is really killing it. \u2026 People interested in culture are gravitating toward English.<\/p>\n

Al Mutawa didn\u2019t mention the wave of censorship that hit the Kuwait book fair earlier this month, but he did say that his home town\u2019s literary festival was the \u201cone book fair\u201d that hasn\u2019t invited him for a visit. (I imagine there are a few in Wyoming and Lichtenstein who\u2019ve also missed out, but take his point.)<\/p>\n

Al Mutawa talked about how he later had come to create The 99<\/em>. At first he resisted the idea, as \u201cI have all these degrees, I\u2019m not going back to writing for children.\u201d But he eventually gave in, and brought his psychologist\u2019s-eye view to the story-creation process:<\/p>\n

A good story has a fit. There\u2019s something there inside us already\u2026 We\u2019re already wired for it.<\/p>\n

He was particularly interested in archetypes and essences:<\/p>\n

I believe strongly that if you boil down things to their symbolic level, nobody will disagree with them.<\/p>\n

Award-winning graphic novelist Qais Sedki also spoke on the panel last night at the Sharjah Book Fest, and I write more about that over at Read Kutub Kids<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And<\/strong>: In the audience last night, I came across the two main architects of the region\u2019s first ComicCon, set to be held in Abu Dhabi next March. These two guys were brimming\u2014almost brimming over, really\u2014with energy and information, and ISA I\u2019ll pump them for more about science fiction and fantasy novels coming soon in Arabic, new Arabic comics and graphic novels, as well as more details about the upcoming ComicCon.<\/p>\n

For those of you who are aspiring graphic novelists or comic-book authors (as you prefer), the ComicCon pair also promises to have practical workshops to help you structure, finalize, polish, finance, and market your work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the name of preserving culture, book censorship is really killing it. \u2026 People interested in culture are gravitating toward English argues the author of the extremely successful comic book series, 99.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[202,353,196,105,18342,1067,18315,2152,2104],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}