للروائية البحرينية ليلى المطوّع، ثيمة القلق على الطبيعة من تغوّل الإنسان، وهذا جليٌّ في أعمالها وحديثها، تعيش بوعيها مع الأساطير على أنها واقع، لغتها لا تشبه غيرها، تنتقي المفردات كمن يغوص في أعماق البحر ويختار من الأصداف لؤلؤة ساحرة، لا تُهمل حجراً ولا شجراً يمرّ بها أو تمرّ به، تؤمن أن الأرواح تنتسب جميعها إلى خليّة واحدة، تفرح بالأسئلة الموغلة في غرائبيتها، ولا تعلّق الإجابات خلف أبواب المواربة.. هنا نصّ الحوار عن أبرز المحطات والتطلعات لكاتبة لفتت انتباه كبار النقاد:
• ما نواة الإبداع التي تُرجعين انطلاقتك الكتابية إليها؟
•• أعتقد أن النواة التي خلقت أي روائي هي الحكاية التي شدّت انتباهه لذلك العالم الموازي، حتى صار جزءاً منه. في طفولتي أهدتني والدتي مفكّرة صغيرة كانت تُوزع كل بداية عام من قِبَل وزارة الدفاع، بها خريطة للعالم، وروزنامة، وتُقسم صفحاتها على حسب اليوم.. فعل الكتابة في مجتمعنا الذي اعتاد الحديث، أو التواصل من خلال الهاتف، أبعدنا عن التدوين، لذلك تأسيسي بدأ من خلال هذه المفكرة التي كنت أدون فيها يومياتي، ومنها انطلق خيالي لأكتب حكايات متخيلة، ثم جاءت فترة (المدونات) و(الفيسبوك) و(تويتر) وبدأت أنشر فيها ما أكتب.
• هل من مصادر أدبية وثقافية توفرت لك في سنّ مبكرة؟
•• المكتبة المنزلية هي أول مصدر اعتاشت عليه مخيلة الطفل قبل دخوله المدرسة إلى جانب الحكاية المروية، من حسن حظي أن والدي كان يحب جمع الكتب، خصوصاً حين يسافر إلى لبنان ومصر، لذلك نشأت وسط هذه المكتبة التي كنت أتسلق رفوفها. ووالدتي كانت حكّاءة مفعمة بالخيال، تروي لنا حكايات شعبية، وتوفر لنا المجلات مثل مجلة ماجد، وميكي والعربي. ثم انتقلت لمكتبة المدرسة، والمكتبة العامة. كنت أهرب من حصص تحفيظ القرآن حيث كانت المعلمة هناك متزمتة، غاضبة وناقدة، لأعبر الشارع حيث المكتبة العامة، وهناك وجدت تنوعاً أكبر في الكتب وعوالم أدهشتني وجعلتي أسيرة لها.
• ما دور الأسرة في تشكيل وعيك وكتاباتك؟
•• الحكاية التي لا تفارق الأفواه، جداتي الكثر في منزلي الصغير، الحكايات عن العيون الأساطير، والخرافات المغرية والمحفزة للمخيلة، كنّ يجتهدن في أن يشاركن في كل الاحتفالات الشعبية، ولبس (البخنق)، والتزين بـ(المشموم) و(الرازجي). وكانت والدتي تشرف على المسرحيات في المدرسة، فتكتب النص، وتعلمنا التمثيل وتجعلنا نحفظ الأغاني، فهي كانت معلمة، وقريبة جداً من الأدب والمسرح، كما أنها زرعت مدرستنا بأكملها بالأشجار، ما زلت أذكر والدتي وهي تجلس أسفل الأشجار، والأشجار تنمو تحت رعايتها، أما والدي فمات وأنا في عمر السابعة، وترك لي مكتبته، وكانت هي المرشد لي في طريقي. كانت هي الصوت المختلف في عالم واقعي متشابه.
• ماذا عن دور المدرسة؟
•• مع الأسف أن النظام التعليمي يخرّج لنا أجيالاً تحفظ بدلاً من أن تفهم، أعتقد أن وجود مكتبة في المدرسة كان هو المتنفس الوحيد لنا.
• كيف ترين أثر المكان على التجربة وأنت ابنة المحرّق؟
•• أنا ابنة جزيرة، وتحيط بنا (الحالات)، كان البحر يحتضننا من كل جهة، والطيور البحرية بأصواتها تجعل من المكان جنة. وقرب منزلنا قلعة أثرية، ومزارع ممتدة، و(جواجب) ماء، كان البحر يخطف الأطفال، نفسه البحر الذي حوصر ودفن في فترات لاحقة، كانت والدتي تضعنا في سيارتها تتبع البحر لنرمي له (الحية بية)؛ وهي نبتة صغيرة نقدمها له أضحية، كنا نعرف كل وجوه الماء وتقلباته المزاجية، ونحبه ونخشاه، إننا أهل الجزر، من شكل الماء هويتنا، ثم ابتعد البحر، ولم نعد نرى زرقته، والنوارس التي تقف على الأرصفة وأعمدة الإنارة، تصرخ هنا كان بحري، ولكن كحال العالم، حين تتسع المدن تلتهم الطبيعة. ولكن الطبيعة ليست صامتة، هي موجودة منذ آلاف السنين، ستقاوم وستعود لتأخذ حقها في المكان، أما نحن البشر فحياتنا ووجودنا أقل منها، لذلك تجد في البيوت المهجورة، كيف تتسلل الشجيرات، وتشق برأسها الأحجار، لتعود لتأخذ حقها في المكان. ولكن غرور الإنسان يعميه عن التأمل، انظر كيف يزحف رمل الصحراء على القرى، وكيف يعود البحر أو السيل ليزيح البيوت التي أخذت مكانه.
• أليس المتوقع أن تكوني شاعرة لا روائية؟
•• لم التوقع؟ الشعرية تكمن في كل ما يحيط بنا، في ماء النبع وهو يتدفق، في موج البحر موجة موجة، في همسات المحبين، في الليل حين تسير أسفل النجوم، في الغروب والشروق وكل الظواهر الطبيعية، العالم كله مبني على الشعرية، لذلك هي تحيط بنا ومنها يأتي حسّنا الشعري. ولكن إن كان قصدك أن أكتب قصيدة، فلم أجد نفسي في القصائد، أنا ابنة الحكاية، وهي التي أسرتني منذ البدء.
• لماذا لم يحظَ العمل الأول «قلبي ليس للبيع» باهتمام كبار كُتّاب البحرين؟
•• ربما لأني كنت مبتعدة عن الوسط، ولا أظهر إلا من خلال نتاجي، حتى العمل الحالي قُرئ قراءات نقدية من قبل نقاد من خارج البحرين، وممتنة بالطبع للروائي الكبير أمين صالح الذي قرأ الرواية والشاعر الكبير قاسم حداد كذلك، فمن خلالهما آمنت أني بين ماءين، بحر أمين الروائي، وبحر قاسم الشعري، وكلاهما من أساطير الماء، وهذا كان من حسن حظي، أني تعرفت على الروائي أمين صالح حين طلب مني الشاعر فواز الشروقي عندما عدت بالنسخ المطبوعة من أبوظبي أن أبعث نسخة من الرواية إلى الروائي أمين صالح، ربما الحواجز الحقيقية في مخيلتنا نحن الشباب، فباب أمين صالح مفتوح للجميع وممتنة له على وقته الذي منحه لي لقراءة العمل والكتابة عنه، لذلك من كتب وعلق على الرواية من البحرين هم هؤلاء الثلاثة إضافة إلى مؤسس الحركة النقدية أحمد المناعي الذي قابلني وقال لي رأيه في العمل. ومؤخراً طلب الروائي أمين صالح نسخة من العمل، وأبدى إعجابه بها، فمثلما قلت، ابتعادي ربما يكون هو السبب.
ولكن من يقارن عملي الأول بعملي الثاني كمن يقارن شخصيتي في بداية العشرين بشخصيتي الحالية، ونحن نعرف كيف ينمو الإنسان وتتغير أفكاره، وحتى نتاجه وما يعبر عنه.
• هل من تفسير للتوقف عن الكتابة قرابة ثمانية أعوام، إلى أن شاركت في «كم رئة للساحل»؟
•• هل إذا توقف الكاتب عن النشر يعني ذلك أنه توقف عن الكتابة؟ هذا تفسير خاطئ، كنت في عالمي الذي أسسته، أكتب، أبحث، وأقرأ. وحين شاركت في ورشة البوكر عام ٢٠١٦ كانت لدي مخطوطة جاهزة من عمل لم أنشره حتى اليوم، وفصل واحد من رواية (المنسيون بين ماءين)، كانت بلا عنوان في تلك المرحلة، كانت مجرد بذرة، ولكنها نمت حتى أزاحت المخطوط الذي كان جاهزاً، رغم نصيحة المشرفين في الورشة بنشر الرواية لحين الانتهاء من هذا العمل الذي أشار محمد حسن علوان إلى أنها قد تكون روايتك. فتمسكت بهذا الأمر، لم أنشر أعمالاً لا أشعر أني مقتنعة بها فقط لإثبات وجود، أو الاستمرار في النشر ليتضخم رصيدي من الأعمال! لدي الكثير من المسودات التي أعدها تمريناً للكتابة ولا أفكر بنشرها. وهكذا عدت إلى البحرين وأخذت أقرأ حدود الماء، وأتبعه كل صباح.. ولكن لم أكن مستعدة لنشر العمل أو التصريح فقط شاركت بفصل واحد في الكتاب (كم رئة للساحل) بطلب من الجهة التي أشرفت عليه. ولم يكن يكشف الفصل فكرة الرواية، ثم عدت لعالمي حتى عام ٢٠٢٣ حين جهزت المخطوطة القابلة للنشر، هنا قررت إرسالها لأصدقائي وكان ذلك بالتزامن مع إرسالها للناشر، لذلك سمعت الملاحظات، وشكرتهم على حرصهم، ولكن لكل كاتب رؤيته وحق مشروع في الدفاع عن هذه الرؤية، ففي الأخير اسمي هو الذي سيوضع على الرواية.
كان لدي الكثير مما علي أن أقوله في مرحلة الشباب، ولكن علمتني الحياة والتمهل كيف أقول هذا الشيء، بعد أن أسرده أكثر من مرة على نفسي، بعد أن أتأمل النص من كل الزوايا المتاحة.
• متى بدأ اهتمامك بالبيئة والطبيعة؟
•• البيئة هي الرحم الأول للإنسان، تشكل وعيي في مدينة تجاور البحر، لا بد أني سأتأثر بطبيعة المكان، ثم ما يربطنا أكثر هي الحكايات التي تقال، من قبل الجدات، ماضٍ مدهش بكل خرافاته وأساطيره التي شكلتها طبيعة الأرض، والبحر، ولكن ما زاد من اهتمامي حين انتقلت لمنطقة زراعية، كنت فعلاً أعيش أسفل شجرة كبيرة تغطي سقف البيت، وتحاوطني الأشجار من كل جهة، هنا تغير إحساسي بالوقت، صرت أصف الفصول اعتماداً على الطبيعة، فأقول قبل موسم الأمطار، الذي أعرفه حين ينتقل النحل ويترك الخلية خاوية، وأعرف الشتاء من طيور النحام التي تزور سواحلنا، وأنتظر الطيور الموسمية وأضع لها التمر بين الأغصان، وحين يظهر نجم سهيل أعرف أن الصيف انتهى، كل هذا أثر بي وبلغتي.
لكن المدينة التي تتسع تتلهم الأشياء، فتشكل حاجزاً بيننا وبين الطبيعة، التي نحنّ لها ولا ندرك هذا الحنين فقط يظهر من خلال زرعنا شجرة في بيتنا، أو تبنّينا حيواناً أو طائراً أو التنزه في الوديان والشواطئ، لذلك تجد الإنسان حين يشتد حزنه لا يجد إلا البحر يفتح ذراعيه له. أما أهل الصحراء فيختلون بها، وهكذا يبحث الإنسان عن أمه الأولى حين يشتد حزنه، ويشعر برغبة في الصفاء. والطبيعة بكل تقلباتها المزاجية هي الأم التي تربي الإنسان.
• أين ومتى شعرت أن الكتابة قدر ومصير؟
•• منذ الطفولة وأنا أرى الكتاب شيئاً عظيماً حين أقلب صفحاته، والكتابة سرداً لحياة أعيشها، التدوين كان طريقة تواصلي مع ذاتي، لأبوح لنفسي قبل الآخر، الكتابة هي إلحاح دائم، ولدي رغبة في تحليل كل ما حولي، وأشعر أني متدفقة بالأفكار، الكتابة جزء من هويتي، وخيالي هو المتنفس لي.
• كيف تلقيت ردود الأفعال على روايتك «المنسيون بين ماءين»؟
•• سعيدة وممتنة لكل من منح الرواية الوقت والجهد لاكتشاف عوالم الماء.
• كم قراءة قُدّمت عن العمل وما أبرزها؟
•• أعتقد خلال سنة من صدور العمل تجاوزت الرواية الثلاثين مقالاً من خيرة النقاد في الوطن العربي، الذين لم يبخلوا علي باهتمامهم بالعمل والاحتفاء به، وكذلك من روائيين عرب أكنّ لهم جميعاً الاحترام والتقدير وشكلوا جزءاً من ثقافتي في مراحل مبكرة لي، وكنت أقرأ أعمالهم بإعجاب شديد. كما صدر كتاب نقدي بعنوان الغضب الروائي لممدوح رزق يتناول الرواية.
• هل تتعمدين الإسقاط السياسي في كتاباتك؟
•• ما معنى السياسة؟ أليست أسلوباً نستخدمه في حياتنا مع كل من نتواصل معه؟ أو نتعامل معه؟ لذلك لا يوجد شيء متعمد، هذا أمر يحدث حين يكتب الكاتب رواية تتضمن شخوصاً، مكاناً، أي عالم متخيل حتى لو تقاطع مع الواقع. ولكن ما نوع السياسة هي أمر يحدده القارئ حسب تأويله وفهمه، وما بداخله من ظنون.
• ما سرّ علاقتك بالأحجار؟
•• أحب الجذور، أحب ما في داخل الشيء، ففي العادة أحب الأحجار لأني أشعر أنها من أعماق الأرض، أحب الحجر الذي أجده في مواقع غريبة، في كل بلد أزوره أجمع الأحجار وأعود بها لمكتبتي، حيث بها أحجار، وأشجار ميتة حنطتها بعناية، وأعلقها حتى أرى جذورها، وهي الجزء المفضل لدي في الأشجار، أحب المفردات وأبحث عن معانيها لأنها تكشف الكثير، حتى أسماء المناطق، ويدهشني علم الوراثة، الجينات لأنها تعرّفني كيف وصلنا اليوم إلى ما نحن عليه ككائنات وتفسر لي ما لا يقال علناً، الأمر لا يتعلق بالأحجار هنا، أنا مهتمة بالجذور، نقطة البداية لكل شيء، حتى أني أسجل أول ذاكرة لي، متى بدأ وعيي وفي أي موقف، ولا أكاد أصل إليها إلا من خلال مشاهد عالقة في الذاكرة.
• ما انطباعاتك عن تجربتك مع هيئة الأدب في «الشريك الأدبي»، وما الذي خرجت به منها؟
•• تجربة مختلفة، في البداية أسعدني التواصل مع الجمهور السعودي المثقف، على اختلاف المكان، واختلاف ثقافته، المملكة متنوعة للغاية، كنت أحلم بزيارة الجنوب، وتحقق لي هذا الحلم، صعدت إلى النبع في قرية ذي عين، وذهبت إلى رجال ألمع، والخرج حيث كان هناك تلاقٍ مع أساطير الماء لدينا، وتشابه التسميات، المملكة مشروع مغرٍ لكل باحث عن الأساطير والموروث، وفكرة المقاهي الأدبية فكرة رائعة تغير من معنى المقهى، ويصبح وسيلة ثقافية ومعرفية. أشكرهم على هذه الزيارة وممتنة لأن الرواية طبعت في دار نشر سعودية «رشم»، ورؤية المملكة ساهمت في إحياء قطاع النشر والثقافة.
أكدتْ أنها هربت من مُعلّمة القرآن المُتزمّتة إلى المكتبة
ليلى المطوع: لا أظهر إلا من خلال نتاجي.. وممتنّة لأمين صالح وقاسم حداد
15 أغسطس 2025 - 02:31
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آخر تحديث 15 أغسطس 2025 - 02:31
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حاورها | علي الرباعي
For the Bahraini novelist Leila Al-Mutawwa, the theme of concern for nature against human encroachment is evident in her works and discussions. She lives consciously with myths as if they are reality; her language is unlike any other, selecting words as if diving into the depths of the sea to choose a captivating pearl from the shells. She does not overlook any stone or tree that passes by her or that she passes by. She believes that all souls belong to a single cell, delights in questions that delve into their strangeness, and does not hang answers behind doors of ambiguity. Here is the text of the dialogue about the most prominent milestones and aspirations of a writer who has caught the attention of major critics:
• What is the kernel of creativity that you attribute your writing journey to?
•• I believe that the kernel that creates any novelist is the story that captivated their attention to that parallel world, until they became a part of it. In my childhood, my mother gifted me a small planner that was distributed at the beginning of each year by the Ministry of Defense, which contained a map of the world, a calendar, and divided its pages by day. The act of writing in our society, which has become accustomed to talking or communicating through the phone, has distanced us from documenting. Therefore, my foundation began with this planner in which I recorded my daily life, and from it, my imagination took off to write imagined tales. Then came the era of blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, and I started publishing what I wrote there.
• Were there literary and cultural sources available to you at an early age?
•• The home library was the first source that nourished the imagination of the child before entering school, alongside the narrated stories. Fortunately, my father loved collecting books, especially when he traveled to Lebanon and Egypt, so I grew up amidst this library that I used to climb its shelves. My mother was a storyteller full of imagination, narrating folk tales, and providing us with magazines like Majid, Mickey, and Al-Arabi. Then I moved to the school library and the public library. I used to escape from Quran memorization classes where the teacher was strict, angry, and critical, to cross the street to the public library, where I found a greater variety of books and worlds that amazed me and made me a captive of them.
• What role did the family play in shaping your awareness and writings?
•• The stories that never leave the lips, my many grandmothers in my small home, the tales about the eyes of myths, and the enticing and stimulating fables for the imagination, they all strived to participate in every popular celebration, wearing the (bakhnaq) and adorning themselves with (mashmoum) and (razji). My mother supervised the plays at school, writing the scripts, teaching us acting, and making us memorize songs. She was a teacher, very close to literature and theater, and she planted our entire school with trees. I still remember my mother sitting under the trees, with the trees growing under her care. My father passed away when I was seven, leaving me his library, which guided me on my path. It was the different voice in a similar real world.
• What about the role of school?
•• Unfortunately, the educational system produces generations that memorize instead of understanding. I believe that having a library in school was our only outlet.
• How do you see the impact of place on your experience as a daughter of Muharraq?
•• I am a daughter of an island, surrounded by (halat). The sea embraced us from every direction, and the seabirds with their sounds made the place a paradise. Near our home was a historical castle, vast farms, and (jawajeb) water. The sea used to capture children, the same sea that was later trapped and buried. My mother would put us in her car to follow the sea to throw it (the hiyah biya); a small plant we offered it as a sacrifice. We knew every face of the water and its mood swings, loved it and feared it. We are the people of the islands; the shape of the water is our identity. Then the sea receded, and we no longer saw its blueness, and the seagulls standing on the sidewalks and lamp posts screamed, "Here was my sea," but like the world, when cities expand, nature is consumed. But nature is not silent; it has existed for thousands of years, it will resist and return to reclaim its rights in the place. As for us humans, our lives and existence are lesser than it. Therefore, you find in abandoned houses how shrubs sneak in and push their heads through the stones to reclaim their rights in the place. But human arrogance blinds him from contemplation; look how the desert sand crawls over the villages and how the sea or flood returns to remove the houses that took its place.
• Isn't it expected that you would be a poet rather than a novelist?
•• Why the expectation? The poetic essence lies in everything around us, in the spring water as it flows, in the waves of the sea wave after wave, in the whispers of lovers, in the night when you walk under the stars, in the sunset and sunrise, and all natural phenomena. The whole world is built on poetry; therefore, it surrounds us, and from it comes our poetic sense. But if you mean that I should write a poem, I have not found myself in poems; I am the daughter of the tale, and it has captivated me from the beginning.
• Why didn't your first work "My Heart is Not for Sale" receive the attention of major Bahraini writers?
•• Perhaps because I was distant from the scene and only appeared through my work. Even the current work was read critically by critics from outside Bahrain, and I am of course grateful to the great novelist Amin Saleh who read the novel and the great poet Qasim Haddad as well. Through them, I believed that I was between two waters, Amin's sea of novel and Qasim's poetic sea, and both are legends of water. It was my good fortune to meet the novelist Amin Saleh when the poet Fawaz Al-Sharouqi asked me to send a copy of the novel to Amin Saleh when I returned with the printed copies from Abu Dhabi. Perhaps the real barriers are in our imagination as youth; Amin Saleh's door is open to everyone, and I am grateful to him for the time he gave me to read the work and write about it. Therefore, those who wrote and commented on the novel from Bahrain are these three, in addition to the founder of the critical movement Ahmed Al-Munai'i, who met me and shared his opinion on the work. Recently, the novelist Amin Saleh requested a copy of the work and expressed his admiration for it. As I said, my distance may be the reason.
But comparing my first work to my second is like comparing my personality in my early twenties to my current personality, and we know how a person grows and how their thoughts change, even their output and what they express.
• Is there an explanation for the pause in writing for nearly eight years until you participated in "How Many Lungs for the Coast"?
•• Does a writer's pause in publishing mean they have stopped writing? This is a wrong interpretation. I was in my world that I established, writing, researching, and reading. When I participated in the Booker workshop in 2016, I had a ready manuscript of a work I have not published to this day, and one chapter from the novel "The Forgotten Between Two Waters," which was untitled at that stage, was just a seed, but it grew until it displaced the manuscript that was ready, despite the supervisors' advice in the workshop to publish the novel until I finished this work that Mohammed Hassan Al-Awan indicated could be my novel. I held onto this matter; I did not publish works that I do not feel convinced about just to prove my existence or to continue publishing to inflate my portfolio of works! I have many drafts that I prepare as writing exercises and do not think of publishing them. And so I returned to Bahrain and began reading the limits of water, following it every morning... But I was not ready to publish the work or declare it; I only participated with one chapter in the book (How Many Lungs for the Coast) at the request of the supervising entity. The chapter did not reveal the idea of the novel, then I returned to my world until 2023 when I prepared the manuscript ready for publication. Here, I decided to send it to my friends, coinciding with sending it to the publisher. Therefore, I heard the feedback and thanked them for their care, but every writer has their vision and a legitimate right to defend this vision, for in the end, my name is the one that will be placed on the novel.
I had much to say in my youth, but life and patience taught me how to say this thing after I narrate it to myself more than once, after contemplating the text from every available angle.
• When did your interest in the environment and nature begin?
•• The environment is the first womb for humans; it shaped my awareness in a city adjacent to the sea. I must have been influenced by the nature of the place. What connects us more are the stories told by grandmothers, a fascinating past with all its fables and myths shaped by the nature of the land and the sea. However, my interest increased when I moved to an agricultural area; I was truly living under a large tree that covered the roof of the house, surrounded by trees from every direction. Here, my sense of time changed; I began to describe the seasons based on nature. I would say before the rainy season, which I know when the bees move and leave the hive empty, and I recognize winter by the flamingos that visit our shores. I wait for the seasonal birds and place dates among the branches, and when the star Suhail appears, I know summer has ended. All of this impacted me and my language.
But the expanding city consumes things, forming a barrier between us and nature, which we long for but do not realize this longing except through planting a tree in our home, or adopting an animal or bird, or strolling in the valleys and beaches. Therefore, you find that when a person's sadness intensifies, they find only the sea opening its arms to them. As for the desert people, they find solace in it. Thus, a person searches for their first mother when their sadness intensifies and feels a desire for clarity. Nature, with all its mood swings, is the mother that raises humans.
• Where and when did you feel that writing was destiny and fate?
•• Since childhood, I have seen the book as something great when I turn its pages, and writing as a narration of a life I live. Documenting was my way of communicating with myself, to express to myself before others. Writing is a constant urgency; I have a desire to analyze everything around me, and I feel that I am overflowing with ideas. Writing is part of my identity, and my imagination is my outlet.
• How did you receive the reactions to your novel "The Forgotten Between Two Waters"?
•• I am happy and grateful to everyone who gave the novel their time and effort to discover the worlds of water.
• How many readings were presented about the work, and what are the most prominent ones?
•• I believe that within a year of the work's release, the novel surpassed thirty articles from the finest critics in the Arab world, who did not spare their attention and celebration of the work, as well as from Arab novelists whom I hold in high respect and appreciation, and who formed part of my culture in my early stages. I read their works with great admiration. A critical book titled "The Novelistic Anger" by Mamdouh Rizq was also published, addressing the novel.
• Do you intentionally incorporate political allusions in your writings?
•• What does politics mean? Isn’t it a method we use in our lives with everyone we communicate with or deal with? Therefore, there is nothing intentional; this happens when a writer writes a novel that includes characters, a place, any imagined world, even if it intersects with reality. But what kind of politics is a matter determined by the reader according to their interpretation and understanding, and what is within them of assumptions.
• What is the secret of your relationship with stones?
•• I love roots; I love what is inside things. I usually love stones because I feel they come from the depths of the earth. I love the stone I find in strange places. In every country I visit, I collect stones and bring them back to my library, where there are stones and dead trees that I have preserved carefully, and I hang them up to see their roots, which is my favorite part of trees. I love words and search for their meanings because they reveal a lot, even the names of places, and I am amazed by genetics because they tell me how we have come to be what we are today as beings and explain to me what is not said openly. The matter here is not about stones; I am interested in roots, the starting point of everything. I even record my first memory, when my awareness began and in what situation, and I can hardly reach it except through scenes stuck in memory.
• What are your impressions of your experience with the Literature Authority in "The Literary Partner," and what did you take away from it?
•• It was a different experience. At first, I was delighted to connect with the cultured Saudi audience, despite the differences in place and culture. The Kingdom is very diverse; I had dreamed of visiting the south, and this dream came true. I ascended to the spring in the village of Dhai Ain, went to رجال ألمع, and Al-Kharj, where there was a connection with our water legends and similarities in names. The Kingdom is an enticing project for anyone searching for myths and heritage. The idea of literary cafes is a wonderful concept that changes the meaning of a café, making it a cultural and knowledge medium. I thank them for this visit and am grateful that the novel was published by a Saudi publishing house, "Rashm," and the Kingdom's vision contributed to reviving the publishing and culture sector.
• What is the kernel of creativity that you attribute your writing journey to?
•• I believe that the kernel that creates any novelist is the story that captivated their attention to that parallel world, until they became a part of it. In my childhood, my mother gifted me a small planner that was distributed at the beginning of each year by the Ministry of Defense, which contained a map of the world, a calendar, and divided its pages by day. The act of writing in our society, which has become accustomed to talking or communicating through the phone, has distanced us from documenting. Therefore, my foundation began with this planner in which I recorded my daily life, and from it, my imagination took off to write imagined tales. Then came the era of blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, and I started publishing what I wrote there.
• Were there literary and cultural sources available to you at an early age?
•• The home library was the first source that nourished the imagination of the child before entering school, alongside the narrated stories. Fortunately, my father loved collecting books, especially when he traveled to Lebanon and Egypt, so I grew up amidst this library that I used to climb its shelves. My mother was a storyteller full of imagination, narrating folk tales, and providing us with magazines like Majid, Mickey, and Al-Arabi. Then I moved to the school library and the public library. I used to escape from Quran memorization classes where the teacher was strict, angry, and critical, to cross the street to the public library, where I found a greater variety of books and worlds that amazed me and made me a captive of them.
• What role did the family play in shaping your awareness and writings?
•• The stories that never leave the lips, my many grandmothers in my small home, the tales about the eyes of myths, and the enticing and stimulating fables for the imagination, they all strived to participate in every popular celebration, wearing the (bakhnaq) and adorning themselves with (mashmoum) and (razji). My mother supervised the plays at school, writing the scripts, teaching us acting, and making us memorize songs. She was a teacher, very close to literature and theater, and she planted our entire school with trees. I still remember my mother sitting under the trees, with the trees growing under her care. My father passed away when I was seven, leaving me his library, which guided me on my path. It was the different voice in a similar real world.
• What about the role of school?
•• Unfortunately, the educational system produces generations that memorize instead of understanding. I believe that having a library in school was our only outlet.
• How do you see the impact of place on your experience as a daughter of Muharraq?
•• I am a daughter of an island, surrounded by (halat). The sea embraced us from every direction, and the seabirds with their sounds made the place a paradise. Near our home was a historical castle, vast farms, and (jawajeb) water. The sea used to capture children, the same sea that was later trapped and buried. My mother would put us in her car to follow the sea to throw it (the hiyah biya); a small plant we offered it as a sacrifice. We knew every face of the water and its mood swings, loved it and feared it. We are the people of the islands; the shape of the water is our identity. Then the sea receded, and we no longer saw its blueness, and the seagulls standing on the sidewalks and lamp posts screamed, "Here was my sea," but like the world, when cities expand, nature is consumed. But nature is not silent; it has existed for thousands of years, it will resist and return to reclaim its rights in the place. As for us humans, our lives and existence are lesser than it. Therefore, you find in abandoned houses how shrubs sneak in and push their heads through the stones to reclaim their rights in the place. But human arrogance blinds him from contemplation; look how the desert sand crawls over the villages and how the sea or flood returns to remove the houses that took its place.
• Isn't it expected that you would be a poet rather than a novelist?
•• Why the expectation? The poetic essence lies in everything around us, in the spring water as it flows, in the waves of the sea wave after wave, in the whispers of lovers, in the night when you walk under the stars, in the sunset and sunrise, and all natural phenomena. The whole world is built on poetry; therefore, it surrounds us, and from it comes our poetic sense. But if you mean that I should write a poem, I have not found myself in poems; I am the daughter of the tale, and it has captivated me from the beginning.
• Why didn't your first work "My Heart is Not for Sale" receive the attention of major Bahraini writers?
•• Perhaps because I was distant from the scene and only appeared through my work. Even the current work was read critically by critics from outside Bahrain, and I am of course grateful to the great novelist Amin Saleh who read the novel and the great poet Qasim Haddad as well. Through them, I believed that I was between two waters, Amin's sea of novel and Qasim's poetic sea, and both are legends of water. It was my good fortune to meet the novelist Amin Saleh when the poet Fawaz Al-Sharouqi asked me to send a copy of the novel to Amin Saleh when I returned with the printed copies from Abu Dhabi. Perhaps the real barriers are in our imagination as youth; Amin Saleh's door is open to everyone, and I am grateful to him for the time he gave me to read the work and write about it. Therefore, those who wrote and commented on the novel from Bahrain are these three, in addition to the founder of the critical movement Ahmed Al-Munai'i, who met me and shared his opinion on the work. Recently, the novelist Amin Saleh requested a copy of the work and expressed his admiration for it. As I said, my distance may be the reason.
But comparing my first work to my second is like comparing my personality in my early twenties to my current personality, and we know how a person grows and how their thoughts change, even their output and what they express.
• Is there an explanation for the pause in writing for nearly eight years until you participated in "How Many Lungs for the Coast"?
•• Does a writer's pause in publishing mean they have stopped writing? This is a wrong interpretation. I was in my world that I established, writing, researching, and reading. When I participated in the Booker workshop in 2016, I had a ready manuscript of a work I have not published to this day, and one chapter from the novel "The Forgotten Between Two Waters," which was untitled at that stage, was just a seed, but it grew until it displaced the manuscript that was ready, despite the supervisors' advice in the workshop to publish the novel until I finished this work that Mohammed Hassan Al-Awan indicated could be my novel. I held onto this matter; I did not publish works that I do not feel convinced about just to prove my existence or to continue publishing to inflate my portfolio of works! I have many drafts that I prepare as writing exercises and do not think of publishing them. And so I returned to Bahrain and began reading the limits of water, following it every morning... But I was not ready to publish the work or declare it; I only participated with one chapter in the book (How Many Lungs for the Coast) at the request of the supervising entity. The chapter did not reveal the idea of the novel, then I returned to my world until 2023 when I prepared the manuscript ready for publication. Here, I decided to send it to my friends, coinciding with sending it to the publisher. Therefore, I heard the feedback and thanked them for their care, but every writer has their vision and a legitimate right to defend this vision, for in the end, my name is the one that will be placed on the novel.
I had much to say in my youth, but life and patience taught me how to say this thing after I narrate it to myself more than once, after contemplating the text from every available angle.
• When did your interest in the environment and nature begin?
•• The environment is the first womb for humans; it shaped my awareness in a city adjacent to the sea. I must have been influenced by the nature of the place. What connects us more are the stories told by grandmothers, a fascinating past with all its fables and myths shaped by the nature of the land and the sea. However, my interest increased when I moved to an agricultural area; I was truly living under a large tree that covered the roof of the house, surrounded by trees from every direction. Here, my sense of time changed; I began to describe the seasons based on nature. I would say before the rainy season, which I know when the bees move and leave the hive empty, and I recognize winter by the flamingos that visit our shores. I wait for the seasonal birds and place dates among the branches, and when the star Suhail appears, I know summer has ended. All of this impacted me and my language.
But the expanding city consumes things, forming a barrier between us and nature, which we long for but do not realize this longing except through planting a tree in our home, or adopting an animal or bird, or strolling in the valleys and beaches. Therefore, you find that when a person's sadness intensifies, they find only the sea opening its arms to them. As for the desert people, they find solace in it. Thus, a person searches for their first mother when their sadness intensifies and feels a desire for clarity. Nature, with all its mood swings, is the mother that raises humans.
• Where and when did you feel that writing was destiny and fate?
•• Since childhood, I have seen the book as something great when I turn its pages, and writing as a narration of a life I live. Documenting was my way of communicating with myself, to express to myself before others. Writing is a constant urgency; I have a desire to analyze everything around me, and I feel that I am overflowing with ideas. Writing is part of my identity, and my imagination is my outlet.
• How did you receive the reactions to your novel "The Forgotten Between Two Waters"?
•• I am happy and grateful to everyone who gave the novel their time and effort to discover the worlds of water.
• How many readings were presented about the work, and what are the most prominent ones?
•• I believe that within a year of the work's release, the novel surpassed thirty articles from the finest critics in the Arab world, who did not spare their attention and celebration of the work, as well as from Arab novelists whom I hold in high respect and appreciation, and who formed part of my culture in my early stages. I read their works with great admiration. A critical book titled "The Novelistic Anger" by Mamdouh Rizq was also published, addressing the novel.
• Do you intentionally incorporate political allusions in your writings?
•• What does politics mean? Isn’t it a method we use in our lives with everyone we communicate with or deal with? Therefore, there is nothing intentional; this happens when a writer writes a novel that includes characters, a place, any imagined world, even if it intersects with reality. But what kind of politics is a matter determined by the reader according to their interpretation and understanding, and what is within them of assumptions.
• What is the secret of your relationship with stones?
•• I love roots; I love what is inside things. I usually love stones because I feel they come from the depths of the earth. I love the stone I find in strange places. In every country I visit, I collect stones and bring them back to my library, where there are stones and dead trees that I have preserved carefully, and I hang them up to see their roots, which is my favorite part of trees. I love words and search for their meanings because they reveal a lot, even the names of places, and I am amazed by genetics because they tell me how we have come to be what we are today as beings and explain to me what is not said openly. The matter here is not about stones; I am interested in roots, the starting point of everything. I even record my first memory, when my awareness began and in what situation, and I can hardly reach it except through scenes stuck in memory.
• What are your impressions of your experience with the Literature Authority in "The Literary Partner," and what did you take away from it?
•• It was a different experience. At first, I was delighted to connect with the cultured Saudi audience, despite the differences in place and culture. The Kingdom is very diverse; I had dreamed of visiting the south, and this dream came true. I ascended to the spring in the village of Dhai Ain, went to رجال ألمع, and Al-Kharj, where there was a connection with our water legends and similarities in names. The Kingdom is an enticing project for anyone searching for myths and heritage. The idea of literary cafes is a wonderful concept that changes the meaning of a café, making it a cultural and knowledge medium. I thank them for this visit and am grateful that the novel was published by a Saudi publishing house, "Rashm," and the Kingdom's vision contributed to reviving the publishing and culture sector.