Support a Storytelling Event in Qena, Egypt

If you are in Cairo, Mona Elnamoury urges you to support a Qena storytelling project by attending a new Ping-Pong storytelling night in Zamalek:

By Mona Elnamoury

Continuing its storytelling project, the Doum Cultural Foundation is holding a new Ping-Pong Storytelling Night tomorrow at 6th Ibn Zonki St. Zamalek, Garden of JWT.

This night is set to be a fund-raising event for the storytelling nights that should be held in Qena, Upper Egypt from April 30 through May 3. The Upper Egyptian events were supposed to be financially backed by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, as had been promised when Gaber Asfour was the minister. But with the recent change of ministers, the fund was cancelled with the new staff.

However, novelist and Doum co-founder Sahar El-Mougy, together with novelist and Doum co-founder Khaled Al-Khamissi, have decided to fight their battle for finances, and arranged this night to gather half of the money needed for the Qena Festival, where twenty storytelling groups are set to perform.

Tickets are available for 150 LE. If you think this is too much, think of the fourteen interactive tales you will hear told by now-professional storytellers. These are stories of resistance, fighting the ugliness and alienation in our hearts. If this is not enough, imagine the happiness of the Upper Egyptians as they live four nights of storytelling, the oldest of all arts.

Although Upper Egypt is a story-vibrant part of Egypt, it has long been culturally separated from the center, Cairo. Tomorrow, we can reach across the divide.

Tickets are available at Doum Cultural Foundation, 20 A Adly St. Down Town, Cairo. They will be also available at JWT Garden itself.

Dr. Mona Elnamoury is a lecturer at the faculty of Arts, English Dept., Tanta University. She also teaches at the MSA in the faculty of Languages and Translation, and has translated Ursula LeGuin into Arabic and is part of the Seshat continous creative writing workshop and storytelling project. She also writes.