The role of the writer towards society and how it reflects in his writing was the topics of a panel discussion that was held as part of the Cultural Activities program of the Sharjah International Book Fair. The panel was moderated by Syrian poet Abdul Razzaq Derbas.Emirati writer and novelist Dr. Asma Al Kitbi spoke about how her writing interests change and evolved over the course of her career. She said that her academic background is in geomorphology so when she started to write columns she chose to write about the scientific brilliance of the Quran.However, when the Arab Spring started, she, like other writers, felt the need to write about it. “The writer reflects the society he lives in, his emotional state as well as the political events that are taking place on a regional or global level,” she said.
As she lives abroad, Dr. Al Kitbi said that she started to encounter people with misconceptions regarding the Arab world and particularly Arab women. “I remember meeting a lady who insisted that Emirati women have no rights because she read that somewhere. I felt that as a writer I have a role to play in educating the world about the reality,” she said, adding that in the future, she plans to start writing in English to address the misconceptions to a larger global audience.Mauritanian writer and novelist Dr. Mohammedo Wald Ahthana said that writers are expected to adhere to five things: the first is to use a discourse that is understood by the public and the second is to understand and absorb the contemporary reality of which he writes “because if he doesn’t understand the reality then he is deceiving the readers and betraying the trust that the readers have placed in him to diagnose the reality of our time” he said.
The third condition is to excel in the use of creative language “so that readers are convinced that the writer strives for perfection and is dedicated,” said Ahthana. The fourth is to tread into unknown grounds and go beyond the familiar and finally the fifth is to commit to the concerns of people on a local, national level and universal level. “The trust that readers place in the writer means that the writer must be interested in people’s priorities and must strive to remove any inner personal gains from his writing and be truly convinced with the thoughts he writes about” he said. Ahthana warned about the effects of the written words as it is capable of starting wars or bringing down an economic system or even posing a threat to the security of countries.