Earlier this week, prolific Lebanese author Fatima Sharafeddine won the Etisalat Award for Arabic Children’s Literature for best book in the YA category, for her novel Cappuccino:
At the Sharjah International Book Fair, where the award is announced each year, Sharafeddine sat down to talk to one of this year’s jurors, Yasmine Motawy.
Yasmine Motawy: What was your writing process when you wrote Cappuccino?
Fatima Sharafeddine: This is perhaps the book I most systematically approached. When I got the idea for it, I collected data, I researched, and I spoke to people. I also spoke to a lawyer for battered women, who introduced me to battered women, a psychologist, and those working at the Lebanese NGO KAFA, which works to eliminate violence and exploitation, particularly against women.
I began to build characters and set up chapters, writing notes on what I hoped to achieve in each chapter. In general, when I start writing, the writing takes me to places where the character needs me, and this was no different; the characters’ reactions to situations allowed me to get to know them better, and I would then go back to page 5 from page 50 and change things accordingly. It is easy to change a sequence.
YM: I was told by a YA fan of yours that, “Fatima Sharafeddine is getting better with each book; Cappuccino (2016) is better than Ghadi and Rawan (2013), which is better than Faten (2010).” What do you think of this?
FS: I think that is a very interesting and astute comment that I agree with! When I go back to my earlier works, I feel that there are parts that sound a little naive, and I feel that I may have been too direct sometimes. The topics for my first two YA novels were ones in which I was very emotionally entangled and were written when the wounds from them were still quite raw; Ghadi and Rawan is based to some extent on my son’s experiences at school and Faten touched on the issue of underage domestic labor that I felt very strongly about. They were written in passionate bursts, unlike the careful construction of Cappuccino. I did not personally know any battered women when I started writing Cappuccino, but I was disturbed by the reports of domestic violence in Lebanon, and planned my fictional take on the subject quite methodically.
YM: How did your writing process improve the outcome of Cappuccino?
FS: I felt I was ‘crafting’ the book more, I played more with language, I was not afraid to use a difficult word in the midst of an accessible paragraph. I threw aside the self-censorship that comes from excessive concerns about the reader’s age. I wrote and let the book be what it was shaping up to be, if it was going to be a YA book, so be it, if it was going to be an adult novel, then that is what it was destined to be.
YM: You do know that your depiction of a battered women’s NGO as a positive place for victims to turn to is controversial, right?
FS: Yes, I do, and I am not saying that all participants in civil society are effective and well-intentioned, but that the one I visited in particular had a very human face and did excellent work in providing these women with counsel and care. I believe that these places can be a beacon of hope for many, especially when the family is unavailable or unsupportive.
YM: Others in the industry hold you up as an example of prolific and disciplined writing (mashAllah!). Do you write every day?
FS: (laughs) Even when I am not writing, I am reading about writing. I give workshops for children and writers and have a pile of well-worn books on the craft of writing that I return to daily. I try things out, I change them, I modify workshops, I play with ideas, but every day I am thinking about writing.
Yasmine Motawy is a children’s-literature scholar, a translator, and an instructor at the American University in Cairo. She is also part of the Egyptian Board on Books for Young People (EBBY).
Also: Read Hend Saeed’s review of Cappuccino.
On Monday, Yasmine Motawy brings us highlights from the judges’ post-prize discussion at the 2017 Sharjah International Book Fair.
