The sharing of culture and poetry was the subject of a session called “Education and Support for Young Authors – An Exchange of Concepts between the UAE and Germany” at the Sharjah International Book Fair 2015 taking place at the Expo Center until 14 November.The event was a collaboration between the Goethe-Institut, a non-profit German cultural association operating worldwide, promoting the study of the German language abroad and encouraging international cultural exchange and relations, and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation (MBRF) which seeks to empower future generations to devise sustainable solutions that address challenges in the knowledge and research domains in the Arab world.Through the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation a group of Emirati young writers were sent to Japan as part of a cultural exchange and they spoke about their experience during the session while three young German writers who took part in the session were part of the German Emirati cultural exchange.
The session was moderated by Holger Ehling, a renowned literary figure, author and public relations consultant. On opening the session Ehling explained that writers need to get a feel for a country from firsthand experience, as just reading about it does not give enough information for the writer.The young German and Emirati authors spoke about their experiences in writing and publishing and Emirati Mohsin Suleiman expressed his gratitude to the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation for the opportunity to travel to Japan and learn about the culture. He said, “It was a wonderful opportunity to be part of the exchange between Japan and the UAE. Exchanges like this are important for writers to understand the local ways and culture. You can get to see the daily life and this infiltrates through the writers work.” Suleiman said he was particularly fascinated by Japanese theatre which was a treasure trove of historical culture. “The actors wear masks, a tradition that is hundreds of years old and this is very dramatic for us. I chose to write about this and am particularly interested in drama as a writer.”
Emirati writer Al Hanouf Mohammad also travelled to Japan as part of the exchange and said it was a very profound experience for her. “I’m very grateful to the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation for the opportunity. The international program is very important to foster young writers and I am very proud I was selected to go to japan. It brought up issues of identity and image for me as many seemed to find the abaya and our clothes strange, threatening even. It caused me to wonder what I looked like to them, what is my identity and does it changes when the cultural environment around me is different?” Mohammad added that as Muslims they were known to come from a conservative and private society but that this had been misinterpreted into the Japanese believing that women could not be poets. “They didn’t understand that we could write; that the female Emirati had a voice and freedom. As a poet, Japan was a wonderful experience, full of poetry, when they serve you tea it comes with a few versus, even in the temples there they have versus hanging on the wall. Japan is alive with poetry.”
German Soufeina Hamed is a comic artist and part Tunisian. She said coming to the UAE had caused her to ponder her own cultural roots. She said, “Here you have a Muslim majority and it is interesting to experience this as a Muslim coming from where we are an ethnic minority. My stories draw on what it is like to be a Muslim in Western societies and are written from a European perspective. I use personal stories in my writing as I believe this is how you reach people, through everyday life and normal situations that people can relate to. But being here has caused me to question my culture, my identity and get in touch with my Arabic roots which are very strong.” German exchange writer, Jenny Mai Nuyena said that this was her first time in the Gulf region and she was completely new to the Islamic culture and so the experience was full of insights for her and Tristan Marquardt said how much he enjoyed the high importance poetry is given in the UAE and Sharjah in particular. For more on the SIBF visit www.sharjahbookfair.com.