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| (Image via Goodreads) |
An Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog: When did you realize that the book seemed to be connecting with readers?
Mahmud El Sayed: I think I’m still realising it. Publishing a book is a strange process but it’s been very gratifying to see The Republic of Memory out in the world. I’ve gotten invited to do some cool festivals and events and had the pleasure to speak with readers. I’ve even had a few Nupol interactions with people on social media and that’s been a lot of twenty to one if you savvy que I mean, bencove.
[Note to readers: Nupol is a language in the book, described later in this interview.]
UHBCB: Could you tell us a little bit about Arabfuturism, and why culturally-specific science fiction is important?
MES: First, a purposefully broad definition. I spent years as a journalist thinking and talking and writing about Al-Shara Al-Araby, the “Arab street” which is to say public opinion amongst ordinary people of the ‘Arab world’. For me, the Arab street is not necessarily a geographic location; it could just as easily be London’s Edgware Road or New York’s Steinway Street as Cairo’s Tahrir Square. It is not necessarily even Arab; it could be Amazigh or Kurdish or Assyrian. It is not specifically Islamic either, it could be Christian or Jewish or Druze. For me, Arabfuturism is the transposing of the Arab street into the future and that could be a near-future Cairo or a colony on Mars or the city-ship Safina.
I’ve been talking about Arabfuturism because this is more than just a general call for better representation – there’s plenty of great stuff being written by SWANA [Southwest Asian and North African] authors in fantasy and horror and other genres. This is specifically about casting our stories, and therefore our presence, into the future.
The Arab street existed yesterday and I’m pretty sure it will exist tomorrow but if it does not exist in stories of far flung futures, on distant worlds and on this one, then something terrible must have happened to us between now and then.
Culturally-specific science fiction is important because it’s about saying, ‘we exist now and we’ll exist in the future as well.’ To imagine yourself in the future is an act of both resistance and hope.
UHBCB: Republic of Memory is a book that seems to be informed by a pretty wide range of science fiction. I often thought of works like Clockwork Orange, Aurora, of An Unkindness of Ghosts, and of A Ballad of Beta-2 while reading it. What were some of your science fiction influences? What are some of your favourite generation starship stories?
MES: Yes, A Clockwork Orange and specifically Nadsat, the fictional slang created by Anthony Burgess, were a big influence on Nupol, the pidgin language that the youth and rebels in The Republic of Memory speak. Anthony Burgess often claimed to have written A Clockwork Orange in three weeks and I wish I could say the same but it took me the best part of four years and one of the reasons why was figuring out Nupol and what other writers might call worldbuilding but what for The Republic of Memory I’ve always thought of as ship-building.
As for generation ship stories, I’m sorry to disappoint you but I haven’t read any of these books (although I’ve just added Ballad of Beta-2 to my TBR because it sounds awesome!) but maybe that’s why the Safina is a bit different? My science fiction influences are eclectic but the ur-text for me will always be Frank Herbert’s Dune. I first read it when I was twelve or thirteen and I have continued to come back to it over the years.
UHBCB: Republic of Memory is a book that seems to be informed by a pretty wide range of science fiction. I often thought of works like Clockwork Orange, Aurora, of An Unkindness of Ghosts, and of A Ballad of Beta-2 while reading it. What were some of your science fiction influences? What are some of your favourite generation starship stories?
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| A British-Egyptian translator and journalist, Mahmud El Sayed's SFF writing is informed by his appreciation of linguistic oddities. (Image via University of Liverpool) |
MES: Yes, A Clockwork Orange and specifically Nadsat, the fictional slang created by Anthony Burgess, were a big influence on Nupol, the pidgin language that the youth and rebels in The Republic of Memory speak. Anthony Burgess often claimed to have written A Clockwork Orange in three weeks and I wish I could say the same but it took me the best part of four years and one of the reasons why was figuring out Nupol and what other writers might call worldbuilding but what for The Republic of Memory I’ve always thought of as ship-building.
As for generation ship stories, I’m sorry to disappoint you but I haven’t read any of these books (although I’ve just added Ballad of Beta-2 to my TBR because it sounds awesome!) but maybe that’s why the Safina is a bit different? My science fiction influences are eclectic but the ur-text for me will always be Frank Herbert’s Dune. I first read it when I was twelve or thirteen and I have continued to come back to it over the years.
For the Song of the Safina specifically, I think The Expanse series and the way its authors used its POV chapters are a big influence. I would add Hugh Howey’s Wool and Ursule Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle to that list.
UHBCB: The book focuses a lot on the perspectives of Iskander and Damiette. Which character's perspective did you most find yourself aligned with?
MES: I don’t think I’d like to specify actually. When inhabiting my characters and writing from their POV, I think and believe as they do. As an author, I don’t want to tip my hand. Iskander and Damietta’s conflict is an age-old one. Reform vs revolution? I know exactly where I stand on that and having now finished the concluding half of the story – The Anarchy of Dreams – I wonder where readers will end up.
UHBCB: The book focuses a lot on the perspectives of Iskander and Damiette. Which character's perspective did you most find yourself aligned with?
MES: I don’t think I’d like to specify actually. When inhabiting my characters and writing from their POV, I think and believe as they do. As an author, I don’t want to tip my hand. Iskander and Damietta’s conflict is an age-old one. Reform vs revolution? I know exactly where I stand on that and having now finished the concluding half of the story – The Anarchy of Dreams – I wonder where readers will end up.
One of the great strengths and pleasures of writing POV chapters is that you can show that each character thinks they are the hero of their own story. Everyone naturally thinks they are doing the right thing. However, it’s true that I probably enjoyed writing some characters more than others. Iskander was quite easy to write and I’m sure nobody who knows me will be surprised to learn that all his random linguistic ruminations came straight out of my own head.
UHBCB: The society on the Safina felt real in ways that few other generation starship stories seem to manage. What were you thinking about when you imagined how the ship's governance might work? About the linguistic minorities and different neighbourhoods?
MES: The story takes place halfway into a four hundred year journey, long enough for many things to change but not everything. I think a lot of generation ship stories are set so far in the future that they might as well be secondary worlds. It was important to me that the Safina be a clear continuation of our world which is why I used real languages, religions and cultures, even if some things have changed and evolved over the years. I don’t know when humanity will head out to the stars, but when we do I’m certain we will bring out religions, our languages, our stories about ourselves, with us.
The majority of the novel is set in and around Fustat berth which, as the name suggests, is a stand-in for Cairo and so it was just a case of transposing Cairo’s shisha cafes and koshari restaurants into the future.
UHBCB: The society on the Safina felt real in ways that few other generation starship stories seem to manage. What were you thinking about when you imagined how the ship's governance might work? About the linguistic minorities and different neighbourhoods?
MES: The story takes place halfway into a four hundred year journey, long enough for many things to change but not everything. I think a lot of generation ship stories are set so far in the future that they might as well be secondary worlds. It was important to me that the Safina be a clear continuation of our world which is why I used real languages, religions and cultures, even if some things have changed and evolved over the years. I don’t know when humanity will head out to the stars, but when we do I’m certain we will bring out religions, our languages, our stories about ourselves, with us.
The majority of the novel is set in and around Fustat berth which, as the name suggests, is a stand-in for Cairo and so it was just a case of transposing Cairo’s shisha cafes and koshari restaurants into the future.
One key to creating a lived in world (or should that be ship?) is understanding that your characters have lives and histories not shown on the page and that things are already and always in motion. The Republic of Memory starts in media res. It’s the story of a revolution, but it’s not the first revolution. The specific use of detail, such as Iskander’s love of Altan Altair novels, can also help to widen the world. Another device I used was the in-world epigraphs at the start of each chapter whether revolutionary quotes or extracts from the Compact or news reports which I think help to give the reader the impression that there is more happening than they are seeing on the page.
UHBCB: One of the aspects I particularly enjoyed about Republic of Memory was the argot spoken on the Safina. It reminded us at times of Russell Hoban’s novel Ridley Walker and at other times of A Clockwork Orange. Why was it important for the characters to have this patois? What does Nupol represent to you?
MES: As a former translator, I love language and it was a lot of fun to smash together all these different languages – Nadsat, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Latin, Polari, even cockney rhyming slang – to create Nupol.
UHBCB: One of the aspects I particularly enjoyed about Republic of Memory was the argot spoken on the Safina. It reminded us at times of Russell Hoban’s novel Ridley Walker and at other times of A Clockwork Orange. Why was it important for the characters to have this patois? What does Nupol represent to you?
MES: As a former translator, I love language and it was a lot of fun to smash together all these different languages – Nadsat, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Latin, Polari, even cockney rhyming slang – to create Nupol.
More than that, I was interested in using the novel to look at soft linguistic relativity and the idea that the language you speak influences how you think. Are the rebels more open to new ideas because they think in and speak this mish-mash of languages? Did the readers who engaged most with Nupol find the rebels more sympathetic than those who did not? These are the kinds of things I think about.
I know authors are not supposed to admit to reading reviews but I have seen a lot of comments about Chapter Four which is the first chapter written predominately in Nupol. I wanted to throw readers into the deep end and say, ‘Look, you’re going to have to work a little bit to understand this’ but also to make clear this is not just a question of the rebels speaking in this strange argot, they think in it, too.
Talking about A Clockwork Orange, Burgess completely opposed the inclusion of a Nadsat glossary in his book and I used that as a precedent when there was talk about maybe including a Nupol dictionary. I didn’t want readers flipping backwards and forwards trying to figure out each and every word but rather to learn through immersion. I think it’s fine for books to ask readers to work a little.
I know authors are not supposed to admit to reading reviews but I have seen a lot of comments about Chapter Four which is the first chapter written predominately in Nupol. I wanted to throw readers into the deep end and say, ‘Look, you’re going to have to work a little bit to understand this’ but also to make clear this is not just a question of the rebels speaking in this strange argot, they think in it, too.
Talking about A Clockwork Orange, Burgess completely opposed the inclusion of a Nadsat glossary in his book and I used that as a precedent when there was talk about maybe including a Nupol dictionary. I didn’t want readers flipping backwards and forwards trying to figure out each and every word but rather to learn through immersion. I think it’s fine for books to ask readers to work a little.
One of my most rewarding reading experiences was James Joyce’s Ulysses which I read simultaneously with a guide providing page by page, and sometimes line by line commentary, explaining all his multilingual puns and references.
UHBCB: So much SFF seems to dismiss translation. Star Trek’s universal translator (and similar technologies) are premised on this idea that there’s an absolute and intrinsic relationship between a word and what it represents.
MES: I'll say this with regards to translation: One of my first ‘proper’ jobs was as a translator at an Arabic newspaper and it was my job to translate the editor-in-chief's oped every morning into English. I remember quite early in the job going to my superior and saying, 'we have a problem here.' The EIC was making an argument in the oped that completely contradicted one he had made the week before. In English language media, that would be a huge deal and would require, at least, an acknowledgement of the first oped and an explanation of the change of opinion. But in Arabic, it's no problem at all. What I learned is that al-Ra'i in Arabic might translate to oped in English but they aren't precisely the same thing and certainly don’t fulfill the same function. An Al-Rai is far more ephemeral than an oped.
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| Republic of Memory is directly inspired by the Arab Spring of the early 2010s. (Image via Eurozine) |
UHBCB: So much SFF seems to dismiss translation. Star Trek’s universal translator (and similar technologies) are premised on this idea that there’s an absolute and intrinsic relationship between a word and what it represents.
MES: I'll say this with regards to translation: One of my first ‘proper’ jobs was as a translator at an Arabic newspaper and it was my job to translate the editor-in-chief's oped every morning into English. I remember quite early in the job going to my superior and saying, 'we have a problem here.' The EIC was making an argument in the oped that completely contradicted one he had made the week before. In English language media, that would be a huge deal and would require, at least, an acknowledgement of the first oped and an explanation of the change of opinion. But in Arabic, it's no problem at all. What I learned is that al-Ra'i in Arabic might translate to oped in English but they aren't precisely the same thing and certainly don’t fulfill the same function. An Al-Rai is far more ephemeral than an oped.
Words have width and breadth and carry cultural freight that are not so easily translatable.
To put that in a Star Trek context — and this is something I was trying to investigate in The Republic of Memory — translation is not a mathematical formula where this means that. Honour can mean something in English and something completely different in Klingon and that’s not just the meaning of the word but the role that concept plays in society. Star Trek has some great linguistic-centred episodes (TNG’s “Darmok,” for example) but it shies away from this kind of interrogation generally because it would probably overcomplicate everything.
UHBCB: Engineered societies in constrained geographies (nuclear bunkers, generation starships, etc.) seem to provide an interesting narrative toolbox with which to explore themes of government coercion. Is this a factor in why you chose a generation ship as a setting for this story?
MES: Yes, definitely.
The Safina is a city in a bottle and I envisioned the duology to be the story of a ship and a revolution, rather than any specific character(s).
I was working as a translator in London when the Arab Spring erupted and when some of my friends went straight away, I dilly-dallied until it was too late and the airports were closed. So, writing this novel was my way of experiencing what I missed.
Choosing to set this loose retelling on a generation ship (rather than an alien planet or colony world) was to help recreate the common strictures of society in this part of the world.
There is a general liberal idea that everywhere is the same and everyone thinks the same but it’s simply not true. The social contract between the individual and the state is different in the SWANA region than it is in the West. The basis of society is not individual rights but something far more amorphous and community-based and I wanted to make sure that came across clearly.
UHBCB: After you finish the Republic of Memory duology, what types of stories do you want to tackle next?
MES: The Anarchy of Dreams will bring the story of this revolution to an end, although do revolutions ever end? I’m hoping to continue writing Arabfuturist stories and I’m currently working on a retelling of the famous 7th century love story of Layla and Majnun set in a near-future Arabia, involving AI and djinn.
To put that in a Star Trek context — and this is something I was trying to investigate in The Republic of Memory — translation is not a mathematical formula where this means that. Honour can mean something in English and something completely different in Klingon and that’s not just the meaning of the word but the role that concept plays in society. Star Trek has some great linguistic-centred episodes (TNG’s “Darmok,” for example) but it shies away from this kind of interrogation generally because it would probably overcomplicate everything.
UHBCB: Engineered societies in constrained geographies (nuclear bunkers, generation starships, etc.) seem to provide an interesting narrative toolbox with which to explore themes of government coercion. Is this a factor in why you chose a generation ship as a setting for this story?
MES: Yes, definitely.
The Safina is a city in a bottle and I envisioned the duology to be the story of a ship and a revolution, rather than any specific character(s).
I was working as a translator in London when the Arab Spring erupted and when some of my friends went straight away, I dilly-dallied until it was too late and the airports were closed. So, writing this novel was my way of experiencing what I missed.
Choosing to set this loose retelling on a generation ship (rather than an alien planet or colony world) was to help recreate the common strictures of society in this part of the world.
There is a general liberal idea that everywhere is the same and everyone thinks the same but it’s simply not true. The social contract between the individual and the state is different in the SWANA region than it is in the West. The basis of society is not individual rights but something far more amorphous and community-based and I wanted to make sure that came across clearly.
UHBCB: After you finish the Republic of Memory duology, what types of stories do you want to tackle next?
MES: The Anarchy of Dreams will bring the story of this revolution to an end, although do revolutions ever end? I’m hoping to continue writing Arabfuturist stories and I’m currently working on a retelling of the famous 7th century love story of Layla and Majnun set in a near-future Arabia, involving AI and djinn.
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