Katara Award winner Ashraf Al-Ashmawy: I feel helpless in the face of war crimes and the marginalized heroes of my novels

Egyptian novelist and judge Ashraf al-Ashmawy, winner of this year's Katara Prize for his novel The Secret Society of Citizens, said he canceled every celebration marking his award.

He added that "it is not right to rejoice in Egypt or any other country and there is a funeral in every house, and wounded on every inch of the land of Gaza," and said, "We are in solidarity with Palestine's right to liberation and to obtain its right to independence."

Novelist Ashraf al-Ashmawy served as deputy attorney general, then judge, and assistant minister of transitional justice, and was responsible for recovering Egypt's antiquities smuggled and stolen from abroad.

Despite his short writing life, he has 10 novels and investigative books, won 4 awards, and is one of the bestsellers in Egypt.

Met Al Jazeera Net at his home in the Agouza area of Giza Governorate, and we had this meeting with him, which is following the events of Gaza on the screen of Al Jazeera moment by moment.

• How do you feel and what is your assessment of what is happening on the land of Palestine?

As a writer, I say that what is happening in Gaza is a shame for the Arabs and humanity as a whole, and as a judge I confirm that what I see is nothing more than war crimes committed by Israel in the absence of a universal Western conscience about what is happening in a small point on the world map.

I feel helpless and I cannot even lend a helping hand to those who have been darkened by the global conscience and left the target of hatred, murder, expulsion and destruction.

I feel helpless towards our brothers in Gaza, and I am not convinced by what some people do by changing the logo of their Facebook pages by raising the Palestinian flag, or the poems of Mahmoud Darwish and Samih al-Qasim, or the drawings of Naji al-Ali.

Is this what will liberate Palestine? Our thoughts must be changed for a solution that is transcending, if I can help, yes I can, but how and international aid was unable to bring in, and that is why I feel the weight of the load and that I am overloaded and insomnia, and sleep visits me little.

I see that we live in a very absurd world, since the bombing of the Baptist Hospital in Gaza, and I do not understand what happened, unable to imagine that me, my son or any child is in a hospital, and then he is bombed while he is sick or injured in the hospital, I do not understand the form of war crimes that occur without calculation

I see that we live in a very absurd world, since the bombing of the Baptist Hospital in Gaza, and I do not understand what happened, unable to imagine that I or my son or any child is in a hospital, and then it is bombed while he is sick or injured in the hospital, I do not understand the form of war crimes that occur without accountability, and how do I believe international politics when you talk to me about the practices of any country about human rights, believe whom? And lie who? I see that we are just living an absurd play!

Pablo Picasso's "Guernica" mural inspired by the bombing of the village in the Spanish Basque Country (Getty Images)

• In World War II, a massacre occurred in a Spanish village that killed 1600 people, Picasso was inspired by the famous painting Guernica, and now every day a new massacre occurs in Gaza, what is the difference between the two incidents, and is the world conscience dead from what is happening in Gaza?

In fact, I do not see a difference between the two crimes, except that the media has become more widespread, the number of people has become more, and the calamities are still repeated, but the difference is that they are done by audio and video.

What we have read and heard about the time of the Nakba in 1948 we now see embodied in front of us on the screens, the human conscience of Western governments has been calcified and absent despite the clarity of the facts before the eyes, and this confirms to us the prophecy of George Orwell in what he wrote in the novels "1984" and "Animal Farm".

That is why I feel sad, helpless and let down as I see the remains of small arms, legs and fingers of children, organs and human remains torn apart in Gaza, all of which are sponsored by the United States, France, Britain, and all of them are accused of war criminals because each of them is a partner in assistance, a partner in incitement, an accomplice because he stands on the crime scene supporting the criminal and strengthening him and telling him to complete your crime, I am in your back.

We live in a world that has lost its humanity, and what will be left for you after you lose your humanity? The last fig leaf has fallen, and whoever does not see the king naked is either a hypocrite or a beneficiary of human blood.

We live in a world that has lost its humanity, and what will be left for you after you lose your humanity? The last fig leaf has fallen, and whoever does not see the king naked is either a hypocrite or a beneficiary of human blood.

• In the introduction to the Katara Prize-winning novel that says "those from whom you expect nothing, are the ones who can amaze us" I see that this condensed sentence is the key and code for everything that goes on in the novel?

The idea of the novel revolves around a very simple meaning, which is that each person you meet every morning in the street and in life, behind each of them is a story that needs someone to lift the curtain and tell it, each of them resists the falsehood that hangs over his life with another falsehood, each character works in a profession that is not their primary profession.

One of the characters of the novel, "Zaid al-Saket", the sweeper she faces every morning cleaning the street, turned into a false witness in the courts, but nevertheless he has a philosophy that he only testifies in personal status cases for the sake of children, husband or wife, but he has three no's, not to testify in cases of theft, extremism or murder.

Every person you meet every morning in the street and in life, behind each of them is a story that needs to be lifted and told, each of them resists the falsehood that hangs over his life with another falsehood.

The second character Fathi Al-Samawi, his profession is to kill dogs through poison, and for this he gained the title of heavenly, this man disposed of a large amount of meat to put poison in it to kill dogs, while his son does not find anything to eat, so he took meat for his children and did not poison dogs, but slaughtered and sold them to restaurants.

The third is the plastic artist, (originally forged paintings), since the three are an association for printing and counterfeiting money, and with counterfeit money they build clinics, schools and a workshop for girls, and the government is well aware of their activities and projects, and the governor goes to open projects, and the government steals the grants that come from the European Union and distributes them as bonuses to employees, and tells the financiers that we have established these projects with grants.

The whole society is stigmatized, from citizens to the government to senior officials, and I try to raise the veneer with which society tries to beautify, everyone visits and fakes.

• Do you draw and define your characters on paper, or are you writing through an idea or situation?

I do not start writing the novel unless I see the beginning and the end and all the chapters of the novel, as if it were a series or a full movie to the extent that when I sleep at night, while I am on my bed, I see the ceiling of the room on a screen, on which the characters and events of the novel pass embodied in its drawing and description, as they move, ride in the car and speak, and I remain completely saturated with work, and I do not write a letter unless the end scene is embodied in front of me.

I do not know how to write in order, sometimes I write the end first, and as for the opening of the novel, I leave it for any time in writing, it may be the last thing I write, and it may happen that I like a chapter in the middle of the novel with which I start working and make a "flashback" for it

There is another point that concerns me personally as a writer, which is that I do not know how to write in order, sometimes I write the end first, and as for the opening of the novel, I leave it for any time in writing, it may be the last thing I write, and it may happen that I like a chapter in the middle of the novel, so I start working with it and work for it "flashback".

The opening of the novel may take me a double effort, and for this I leave it to his time or the end of writing, because in the opening is the secret of the secrets of the novel, from which the reader may be released captive to the pages, and the beginning may be the cause of his alienation forever.

Novelist Ashraf Al-Ashmawi holds the logo and deed of the Katara Award for Published Novel (Al Jazeera)

• As you draw your characters, didn't the characters once rebel against you, refuse to obey you, and want to go in another direction, which you probably didn't mean?

I was often surprised by the rebellions of my characters, all the characters of the novel "The Secret Society of Citizens", and the protagonist of the novel "A Single Ticket to Cairo" Nubian and his name is the wonder of the secret of the seal, exhausted me for two whole years, and at one time I got rid of him and killed him, in order to get rid of his pursuit.

He was chasing me in my dreams in a provocative way, and he used to come to me in the dream through the viewer, so I brought him back to life again, and for this this novel was one of my longest novels, and its pages approached 500, and its words exceeded 88 thousand words, and the protagonist's quirks were the reason, he feels injustice, and I feel towards him that I created him marginalized and oppressed at all stages of his life.

He is crushed all the time, exhausted me and tired me a lot because I was speaking in his voice, and that is why I used in the dialogue some words written in the Nubian language, and this required me to live with the people of Nubia and stayed with them in their living for two full weeks in order to saturate with personality.

• You worked in the State Security Prosecution, how did you balance the job requirements with your vision for justice?

The fact that the State Security Prosecution took a share of injustice that it does not deserve, because State Security is linked to freedoms, and State Security Investigations are associated with torture, and of course the prosecution received it from hatred aside.

But the person is the one who sets the standards, if you have the concepts of justice, and that the accused has rights, he sits during the investigation in the presence of his lawyer, he can see his family, he can say what he wants or does not speak at all, and he is treated humanely, as an investigator who followed innocence before conviction just like a judge, and this is what I used to do while I was in the prosecution, and I do not think that I wronged anyone.

• Every writer has a spectrum and shadow in his works, which of your novels has the character of Ashraf Al-Ashmawi the most?

Most of the novels carry my character, "Coptic House", where its protagonist is a prosecutor located in an imagined village in the heart of Upper Egypt called "Taya", and its meaning is lost forever, and the hero is a prosecutor looking for justice in the nineties, a period in which justice was completely absent, I think it was the closest to my personality at this time.

"I sell an illusion in a tale"

"Orfanelli Hall" is one of the qualitative novels and new in its subject, in which characters are distinguished by uniqueness, where auctions, buying and selling, in a picture closer to life, as the world is nothing but a large auction.

I found that the auctions began in 1900 with Egyptian Jews until 1956, and I had to look for people who worked in the halls and lived this period and are still alive, I found 3 people, two of them accepted to talk to me and the third refused.

And I had details, how can I deceive the person who entered me in the lounge? How do I know that he is a customer, and how do I show him the piece subject of sale and delude him that it is very expensive, and it is originally an expensive piece, so the theme at both sides was the focus of the story.

For example, you buy this phone, and here the art, story and imagination are available to the worker in the hall, I say to the buyer, the phone was owned by Anwar Sadat, and when he was sitting with Begin in Camp David, Begin was impressed by the phone, so Sadat gave him a gift, and when Begin died, his heirs sold it and moved from auction to auction until he docked us here in this hall.

The important thing is that you buy the phone based on the story, and it is not important here its description, shape or possibilities, you buy the story, take it and put it in your house, and everyone who visits you tells him the story.

This is how the auction, the rumor and the lie, and the bigger the lie that people believe, and the richer it is in details, the greater the degree of its believability, and I worked in the novel on this basis.