A signed Copy of The Smiles of The Saints to Philip Reeve

The hugely talented and versatile author Philip Reeve as per The Telegraph who said that  the emotional journeys of his characters are enthralling, never sentimental and always believable. 

During his meets with Egyptian author Ibrahim Farghali in The Dubai Festival for Literature, has got a signed copy of The Smiles of The Saints.

I wish he would Enjoy it. The way I'm enjoin now his brilliant works of Science Fiction 

Reeve with Farghali at Dubai Literature Festival

Super people? or super stupids?

The Smiles of The Saints 

How can be a nation live with people who are thinking they are super because of there religion or belives?!!


http://www.aucpress.com/p-2782-the-smiles-of-the-saints.aspx

that is the view of my book, How should all Egyptians live together as a nation no matter what they belive in 

But the Saints , or the bad education or literacy almost and always have some other choises

Get the book:
https://www.amazon.com/Smiles-Saints-Modern-Arabic-Novel/dp/9774161076

Why I,m concerning about Saints Smiles

Why I wrote this Novel 

when I started to write this novel I asked some of my friends whether they can find an issue in the Coptic Muslims relations in Egypt, and most of them said "No we don't think so". Those friends and relatives mostly were middle class with a very open minded ways of thinking and mostly having so many christian friends as most of my generation. But I was knowing that this is not the situation among so many other parts of the society.

 I know a friend who refused to take chocolate from a priest when we went to make a feature about a crises in the city of Garbage one day in the beginning of the nineties.

 I was knowing the my youngest sister , on the contrary of our generation have no christian friends among her community. I know that the situation in the country side is awful between Muslims and Christians, That's why I decided to write about the Love relation between the Egyptian Christians and Muslims where no one wanted to see that Love is more powerful than hate. 
You can find it here :
https://www.amazon.com/Smiles-Saints-Modern-Arabic-Novel/dp/9774161076

https://www.amazon.com/Smiles-Saints-Modern-Arabic-Novel-ebook/dp/B00IG897YI

Quotes from "The Smiles of The Saints"

Quotes from

 "The Smiles of The Saints"

By Ibrahim Farghali

Translated by: Andy Smart, Nadia Foda Smart

Your silent sobbing tore me apart Nadia, as you drove along Talaat Harb Street on your way to kidney center beside the university. You stopped crying only for few moments as you entered the elegant hospital entrance but it began again immediately afterward. No amount of tissues could coup with your tears.

What stopped you was the emergency call to go to the operating theater. I may be the only one who knows what goes on in your heart. That awful silence that you know now after those long years of inner roaring, created by his thoughts, has left you with nostalgia… Now what will you do?

p

*******

After the dramatic death of Sadat there was not a bearded to be seen. For my part I stayed at home most of the time like my companions – the Brothers- who were in the process of organizing themselves. Was this the outcome of those two whole years of indoctrination, those weekly sermons meetings, and retreats where they had made us repeat after them, passionate for the dominion of Allah and passing of the tyrant? Had they known all along the timing of the operation or were they just as surprised as we were by the dramatic events?

I stopped asking questions and gave up going to mosque, making do with praying at home. I felt it was the end of that chapter in my life. P39

***************

Break time in el Malik el Salih Preparatory School was the ideal time to stand on the concrete ledge that supported the railings in the middle of the school wall facing the great Iron Gate. From there, with my back to soccer players and their supporters, I had the opportunity to watch the girls in the dormitory of the Greek School opposite- slim, blond girls that exited my imagination. On one occasion while I was standing there on the ledge, I saw her as she was undressing, unaware of the open window or of my presence while I, in a fleeting whose image was to remain with me for a large part of my life, was conscious of her naked. But from where I am can see only her tender shoulders, the upper part of her back, and her tiny breasts that are visible only in those moments when she raises her arms before dropping them quickly, as she covers herself up, shutting off the view that shock my soul, taken my breath away, and unsettled me for so long. P48

*********

May be I was the fastest, Nadia. But I ran alone, racked with pain. I was accompanied by an imprecation and a vow and by prayers for Christmas and Easter. All in vain. Now I'm just a ghost seen by no one, with no trace even of Rami or Christine. Here in front of me stands Haneen, their daughter, a clear symbol of the irrational lives you all live, Nadia.. while you tell her stories that have almost been wiped from my memory by the force of the pain.

When We struck blindness

a chapter of

The Smiles Of The Saints

By Ibrahim Farghali

translated by Andy Smart

Nadia Fouda Smart

Games of time and chance have dominated my whole life- They helped me to escape being haunted by Christine through the appearance of Maria, who saved me from so many hallucinations and anxieties. It was those same 'games 'that replaced Maria's ghost with that of Christine, but this time there was an even bigger surprise.

I had more or less started getting used to life without Maria. I was venturing to walk past those places that were so painful and that could only reignite memories buried in the depth of my Soul each time I passed by them: The Greek School, Randoplo, Kasino el Nil, and so many others. Due to depression and lack of any will to go out I would spend most of the time sitting at home, reading whatever came my way, when my mind was clear enough. Or I would sit starring at the television screen without any real desire to watch anything in particular. I spent most of the time in my room, listening to music without tiring of it for only music could salve mu soul.

It was there in my room that I was amazed to receive news of her return, when Nadia opened my door with a surprisingly silly smile to tell me that Christine was there in the living room!

She offered her hand as she smiled in a friendly way, looking at me without saying anything. I felt the features of her face had become more mature. I took her hand determined to squeeze it a little, to convey to her what I could not put into words. I held her tender, warm palm, recalling an era of feeling that I thought had vanished from my life forever. I approached her to kiss her and she accepted my kiss calmly, without a word.

After Nadia had brought in the tea tray and I had got used to Christine's presence once again, the conversation began to focus a little, although after a while I realized I was chattering without pausing while she was generally distracted. I felt that her soul glowed less brightly than before.

Gradually we began to resume our relationship, as if trying to overcome the death of Emad and trying to find new expression for a relationship between two people that held no place for him except as a pale ghost of the days whose beauty we could not recapture. We tried also to revive the parts of our hearts that had died. It was not easy to recapture those feelings after my experiences with Maria, whose image forced a comparison with all that Christine did, and I could not believe that she could be the same person that she had been before she decided to become a nun. I told her about my studies at Faculty of Law and about some of the professors especially Dr. el Shafei Bashir who usually turned his weekly lecture on international law into the start of a campus demonstration that began as soon as we left the lecture hall.

She told me she had lost a year of school and had had to repeat her secondary school leaving exam.

I described the basic out lines of my experience with the Gama'a, since I was not enthusiastic about discussing the subject, and she told me briefly about the rituals with which she had begun her life in nunnery.

When I asked her what had made her leave the nunnery and abandoned her life as a nun she wrinkled her face for a moment before broaching the subject hesitantly. Then she fell silent again for a while before adding firmly "It's better if we don't talk about religion again".

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I don't want to talk about anything to do with religion again. Please don't try to."

"Fine. Then I won't tell you why I left the Gama'a!"

She smiled without a comment.

After further silence I said, "Okay, so we won't even go and light a candle at Mar Girgis?"

Her eyes filled with tears as she shook her head. And I knew that what we had enjoyed together could not be repeated. I remembered the last occasion we had gone to Mar Girgis on Port Said Street, where we had lit candles for Emad for the final time.

We will miss those beautiful shared experiences, just as we will not see the pigeons that circle overhead, fluttering in brilliant light when we heard of the appearance of Virgin in some church. From now on we will be struck with blindness.

Ibrahim Farghali.. Saintly Models!

In progress: Saintly models

Profile by Youssef Rakha - Ahram Weekly

 

Cover of the Novel (left)- Ibrahim Farghali

Ibrahim Farghali is a writer and journalist. Since graduating from the Faculty of Commerce, Mansoura University, he has worked at Rose Al-Youssef (1991-94), the Omani cultural magazine Nizwa (1994-97) and several departments of Al-Ahram (since 1998). He has published his work in Al-Fann Al-Sabie, Akhbar Al-Adab, Adab wa Naqd and many other magazines and periodicals. Since last returning from Oman, where he spent a significant part of his childhood, Farghali has produced three volumes of fiction: Bittijah Al-Maaqi (Towards the Eyes, 1997), Kahf Al-Farashat (Butterfly Cave, 1998) and lately Ashbah Al- Hawaas (Ghosts of the Senses, 2001); the latter, whose main theme is sexual relations, appeared just after the banning of three, allegedly pornographic General Organisation for Cultural Palaces publications -- an occasion referred to as the "three novels crisis". Other than the two projects I'm working on, intermittently, there is really very little to speak of. I married last summer and my daughter Laila is already a major figure: she commands a great deal of my attention. Then there is the daily, journalistic work: nothing terribly interesting there. Every week I read books in preparation for the Tuesday Books page of the daily Al-Ahram. I can't say I enjoy reading in this rushed way, by force as it were, though Ezzat El-Qamhawi's recent Al-Aik fil-Mabahij (Trees of Joy) did prompt a deeply felt response, its slight verbosity notwithstanding. At Rose Al-Youssef I did straightforward political reporting, nothing else, but even the culturally-oriented press proves frustratingly conventional as a job; and it tends to take up far too much time. One of the two projects is a novel, yes. Ibtisamat Al-Qiddisin (Saints' Smiles) is my provisional title, but I'm still thinking. It's about Muslim-Copt relations; sometimes -- you mention Ashbah Al- Hawaas -- it pays to be topical, though for me it is never a popularity-generating mechanism. The stories in Ashbah Al- Hawaas had been written long before the crisis, of course, but it was a nice timing challenge; and it was reassuring to find a publisher (Mohamed Hashim's Miret) willing to take the risk. The real challenge, however, was how to be bold, even explicit, without being in any way vulgar or losing sight of the reader. Themes included mutual misunderstanding between men and women; and four of the stories in the collection recount the same events from two corresponding viewpoints. There was also this idea of intimacy between two people from two entirely different socio-cultural backgrounds, how they might interact at this level, what they might say. You will notice, though, that if anything the actual sex either does not happen at all or remains incomplete. I've been working on Ibtisamat Al-Qiddisin, on and off, for a very long time. Laden details keep emerging, taking control and prompting various kinds of research are propelling me in new directions. Some events take place in Mansoura, for example. Some scenes happen in churches there. A lot of priests and things. Now in the area there are two principal towns, Mansoura and Talkha; and the usual leisure practise for many of the inhabitants of Mansoura is to cross the river to Talkha and look back on their city from there. "Mansoura from Talkha" is thus the usual perspective. And during my research -- one logistical problem, you see, was that every so often I had to get there and stay for a few days; thankfully that part of my research has been concluded -- it was interesting to reverse that perspective, looking, instead, at Talkha from Mansoura. You'd be surprised how many memories this process of rediscovery generated, and how much inspiration for the novel. All I have to do now is to sit down and finish writing the book. It sounds blissfully simple... Whereas a short story overtakes you all at once -- laying its own foundations and forming, as it were, immediately -- a novel builds up over time. In a story there tends to be absolutely no plan, but when you write a novel you have a general theme and you seek it out as you write, discovering more and more details as you go along. You look around you and the idea changes, the bits and pieces come together in ever newer ways and it might end up being something totally unlike what you started out with. Whether it's a short story or a novel, though, I always work with the reader in mind: I feel I have an obligation to the reader, whose interest I must never let go of. Maybe the topical bent is merely a reflection of this concern: wanting to capture the reader's interest and maintain it till the very last sentence. Which should never be confused with being vulgar or blasphemous or scandalous in order to generate attention. It is in the second project that this open-ended approach to writing a novel finds expression. Again, from the practical viewpoint, one should never begin a new project until the old one is complete. But you can't help these fluctuations of attention -- forcing you into one or another direction despite your better judgment. Already I've published a chapter of the new book -- in the last issue of the alternative literary magazine Al-Kitaba Al-Ukhra, under the title Tuqous Awwaliya (Preliminary Rites). I was thinking the title for the whole thing would be Aqni'at Al-Ra'ia (The People's Masks) but I'm not at all sure. That chapter depicts a sort of fancy-dress party in which the masks develop into disturbing dimensions of the characters' identities. The book is focussed on this idea of illusion vs. reality, lying vs. the truth and multiple identities. As far as I can see it's going to be a multi-genre endeavour, with long passages devoted to the concept of the artist's model -- another long-standing interest of mine -- and others that will draw on my own experience. But the "I" of the narrator plays no part in the transition from one mode to another. The stress will remain on fiction, on this being an essentially fictional text: all the various, diversely dramatised strands of the aforementioned cluster of themes should emerge seamlessly out of the process of invention itself -- of producing fiction. I'm equally embroiled in both projects at the same time. I wish I could finish one of them, that would be such a relief. Eventually, I'm sure, one of them will take over entirely and so force me to complete it

On twins and troubles by Youssef Rakha

                          

                           

                                  Of twins and troubles

- Ibtesamaat Al-Qiddiseen (The Saints' Smiles), Ibrahim Farghali, Cairo: Miret for Publication and Information, 2004. pp164 - Ain Al-Qott (Cat's Eye), Hassan Abdel-Mawgoud, Cairo: Miret for Publication and Information, 2004. pp106

Two new books from Cairo's most active independent publisher confirm the suspicion that, notwithstanding the compulsion to break out of the prevalent moulds of narrative composition, it is the influence of Latin American magic realism that conditions much of what is currently being written. In their last two novels, Ibtesamaat Al-Qiddiseen (Saints' Smiles) and Ain Al-Qott (Cat's Eye), respectively, both Ibrahim Farghali and Hassan Abdel-Mawgoud are practising a form of fantastical writing more like the work of Gabriel-Garcia Marquez -- say -- than anything they have previously written. It is true that, in both young writers' work, the tendency to imbue more or less realistic narrative with aspects of the incredible has always been present.

But while it is also true that the imaginative dimension of such writing has tended to perform an intellectual function -- sexual depravity as a metaphor for loneliness, for example, or an impossible plot development acting to reflect the irrationality of day-to-day life -- only now, it seems, has the practice of observing the ordinary through surreal eyes burgeoned into structured, almost formulaic generic writing. Discussions of the influence of magic realism on contemporary Arabic writing often centre on how a literary style that emerged in a different culture is adapted to Egyptian reality. And perhaps this aspect of a many-sided issue provides an adequate cue for a reading of the present books.

Farghali's book opens with a description of Hanin's return from a French boarding school to Mansoura -- her and the narrator, Emad's, home city. Everything initially seems ordinary except for one small detail: the reader is soon to discover that Emad -- a friend of Hanin's father Rami and the frustrated lover of her aunt Nadia, Rami's twin brother, who now receives her -- just happens to be dead. As the 20-year-old Hanin meets her aunt, embarking on a journey of discovery in which she finds out more about her father, aunt and supposedly dead mother, more than she ever thought possible -- the story takes on the guise of a complex family drama in which Emad plays the dual role of past participant and present narrator.

 The mystery of Hanin's mother's whereabouts invests the action with a degree of suspense that helps sustain interest.

As the plot thickens Emad disappears, and it is Nadia and Rami who take over the narration as the book draws to an end. Nadia speaks of her indissoluble attachment to Rami, her twin brother, providing her own account of Emad's story and revealing Hanin's secret: that she is in love with a Jew who wants her to live with him in Israel. 

Rami divulges part of the detail of his life following the disappearance of his wife, revealing his anti-Israeli feelings. In the end, however, the narrative closes on the same ordinary note. Neither is the mystery revealed nor does the reader find out about the future course of the characters' lives.

Within the context of magic realism, Farghali, faithful to his roots in social realism, is at bottom commenting on current social issues like Egyptians working abroad, Muslim-Copt relations (Hanin's mother is Christian) and the Arab Israeli conflict. Abdel-Mawgoud, by contrast, seeks inspiration in Egyptian folk heritage, evidencing a complex love-hate relationship with his Upper Egyptian roots. The name of the hero of Ain Al- Qott, the narrator's twin brother, is Qott (Cat), and he was so named because he came into the world half a minute after his twin brother, due to the prevalent belief that the younger twin metamorphoses into a cat by night. The present Qott really does become a cat, however, and it is this more than any other fact that drives the narrative forward.

Other stories make up a deeply absorbing panorama of village life in which Abdel-Mawgoud's psychological insight comes to the fore: the guard Hannawi's conspiracy with the mayor to cast the barber Boutros and his wife out of the village; the affair Sanneya, the wife of the civil servant Salah, is having with the driver Abbas; Hennawi's involvement in doctoring the elections; the inferiority complex suffered by Ustaz Sabri, the geography teacher, who lives in the poorest district; and the revolution the latter leads, putting an end to the oppression suffered by the poorer villagers...
Through the complications resulting from Qott's nightly observations of village life -- secrets he tends to divulge by morning -- Abdel- Mawgoud manages to tell a number of interesting stories and put forward a complete picture of contemporary village life, while at the same time investing his narrative with a charming fairy-tale dimension and thus avoiding any vestige of melodrama in so doing.

 In this way the text incorporates the prevalent, and palpably unrealistic beliefs of the villagers into the process of understanding their life -- a form of magic realism that is even more obvious than the one practised by Farghali.

Taken together, the two novels testify not only to the younger generation of novelists' ability to weave strands of the impossible into a homegrown realistic tapestry, but to a growing awareness among the practitioners of literature of the need to invest what they have to say about society or the psyche with readability -- a need that the Latin American example caters to in as many ways as there are authors who use it.

Reviewed by Youssef Rakha