World-class award winning authors discuss the Magic of Storytelling at SIBF
NY Times bestseller, Joan Bauer, Booker prize winner Ben Okri and renown Egyptian writer Dr. Al Mansi Qandil talk imagination
5 Dariya News
Sharjah 07-Nov-2015
The love of storytelling was the subject of a cultural session called “The Magic of Tale … Imagination Development” yesterday (Friday) featuring world class, award winning writers at the 34th edition of the Sharjah International Book Fair 2015 taking place the Expo Centre from 4-14 November.Ben Okri, the Booker Prize winning author of The Famished Road, whose work has been translated into 26 languages; Joan Bauer, author of twelve novels for young adults and a New York Times Best-selling writer and Dr. Mohammed Al Mansi Qandil, an Egyptian nationalist writer who has produced numerous works took part in the session looking at the magic that is created through creative imagination and skill in constructing the scenes and events of the tale that are based on characters, places and objects.
Joan Bauer described this process through a story. She said, “A huge uncut diamond was brought to the UK and inspected. A diamond in the rough is not a beautiful sparkling object but more like a stone. The greatest diamond cutter in the land was found and he spent two weeks examining and inspecting and measuring this diamond. Finally he got out a huge hammer and with one big blow, hit the diamond with full force to the horror of spectators. However, everything unattractive, unnecessary and unwanted fell away from the diamond in that second, leaving a sparkling jewel of half the size. That is the work of the writer, to cut away everything unnecessary to reveal a work of art.”
Good story telling, said Joan, comes down from the largeness of time and space to the small moments. For example a good war story is not the war but perhaps the conversation between a mother and her son in a bomb shelter wondering what is happening to dad. “We move from the largeness of life down to the small moments in our soul and the quality of that is what makes a good story,” she said.Ben Okri began by reading a poem about the magic of storytelling, called “All We Do” that states without story our identities starve, living belongs to story, being belongs to mystery. Okri said, “With stories we gather time as we live it and give it a shape that lives on in dreams of the people. I am a great believer in stories and the age in which they are told, the orientation and inclination, the political element of storytelling is as natural as the mythic and creative angle to me. We can’t shape new stories but we can shape new angles.”
Dr. Mohammed Al Mansi Qandil said that writing about Egypt and its people was very natural to him. “I was brought up in a working class area and there was always a kind of turmoil and upheaval between workers and the ruling authority. I grew up smelling the tear gas with a sense of rebellion and revolt everywhere which had an impression on me. The writer talks about his own experience although the imagination saves you from the bitter reality of political disturbances and religious conflict. In every story there is a testimony, an outlet for the difficulties of life.” Join the SIBF 2015 on every day and evening with exciting line-ups of top authors. For more details visit www.sharjah bookfair.com.