With Flash Fiction Finalist Hamza Dhahbi

For our forthcoming bilingual publication — which will feature the fifteen short stories shortlisted for the 2024 Arabic Flash Fiction Prize, co-produced by ArabLit and Komet Kashakeel — we made up our own sort of Proust questionnaire for the authors. In it, we’ve asked each of them the same 15 questions you’ll find below (although here you won’t find 15, as they had the option of ignoring any question that didn’t appeal).

Excerpts from their answers will appear in the print collection, and they will also run in fuller versions online at ArabLit.

Moroccan writer Hamza Dhahbi was a finalist for the 2024 prize with his story “Desires That Only Result in Pain” (رغبات لا ينتج عنها الا الألم). This project is funded by the British Council’s Beyond Literature Borders programme corun by Speaking Volumes Live Literature Productions.

 

Tell us about a short-story author whose work you particularly admire.

Hamza Dahbi: In fact, there are many short story writers whose works I admire. Chekhov, for example, delights me to the utmost degree. I return to his works constantly. He exposes and lays bare triviality, and he reveals the human predicament in a world that is trending toward stupidity. His stories are a temporary antidote to the poison that is spreading in our conscience. Bukowski also makes me smile the entire time I spend reading his stories, which are centered around people who have been let down by the world. I like Idriss Al-Khoury too, and his ghoul city that makes strangers out of its heroes. Also, Hassan Blasim and his existential terror. But if I were to choose someone, I would say Anis Al-Rafei. If you read his works, and this is what I expect from you, you will realize that he is a writer of a unique type, made of a gemstone from which only great writers are made. For him, the world is mysterious and enigmatic, and it has not yet lost its magic. Moreover, he is a writer who is constantly innovating, and this is natural, as writing for him is a violation of the rules that story writers have settled on.

 Tell us about an opening sentence you find particularly compelling, in any work of fiction.

HD: This question reminds me Gabriel García Márquez’s shock when he read the first line of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis: ” When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself changed into a monstrous cockroach in his bed.” I would have liked to say that what happened to the author of One Hundred Years of Solitude happened to me as I read the opening sentences of this novel, but actually that did not happen. Instead, there is the opening sentence of Orhan Pamuk’s The New Life: “I read a book one day and my whole life changed,” which made me wonder when I would come across this book that would, after reading it, change my life.

Editor’s note: Here, we use the 2007 Michael Hoffman translation of Kafka; The New Life was translated by Guneli Gun.

What advice on writing—that you were told or perhaps read somewhere—have you found most useful and nourishing?

HD: In her autobiography The Illiterate, particularly in the chapter entitled “How does one become a writer?”, Ágota Kristóf offers important advice that can be summed up as follows: One must first write, and then one must continue writing, even when no one is interested, even when we have the impression that our writing will never interest anyone.

Near the end of the chapter, she adds: We become writers when we write with determination and patience, and without ever losing faith in what we write.

Editor’s note: The Illiterate is available from New Directions in Nina Bogin’s English translation.

When did you start writing? Do you remember anything about the first piece you ever wrote, or the place that you wrote it?

HD: I started writing in my twenties, just a few years ago, if my memory serves me right, during my first year of university, when the university had a rosy image as a place where minds flourish, and as a mine from which diamonds are extracted. Then I discovered that it was a mine from which nothing but coal was extracted. I had written, in a café after returning from university, a text on my Facebook page, in which I described my day at university in a black comedic style, and it was well-received by many people, such that I was inundated with likes and encouraging comments that made me believe I had something special—even though comments and likes are often misleading and do not reflect the reality of the situation. Yet they sparked the idea of writing in my head.

Tell us about one of the main places where you write. Is it at a desk, on a couch, in bed? At a coffeeshop? Secretly, while at work?

HD: Nowadays, I mostly write on my computer in my room, sitting on the edge of my single bed, with a cup of tea next to me that I sip from every now and then.

What is one poem you have memorized that you sometimes recite to yourself?

HD: “Some people never go crazy/ What a terrible life they live.”

I find in it some consolation for those who see themselves—and are seen by others—as eccentric.

What author, living or dead,  would you like to have on WhatsApp?  

HD: None, and for two reasons. First, I believe that we should leave the writer alone, and only express our love for them by reading their works, not by annoying them. Second, we often end up hating those on our WhatsApp conversation list, so I’m afraid that I’ll hate the writer, then their works accordingly.

However, if I had to choose, I’d say Naguib Mahfouz, also two reasons. First, I love the man and hold him in high esteem, and second, I’ve never seen a writer as humble as him. In his interviews and conversations, of which I’ve watched clips on social media, I’m always amazed by his extreme humility, so I know for sure that he’ll respond to my messages and won’t leave me rooted to the spot like a lamppost waiting for his reply.

If you were going to write using a pen name or pseudonym, what would it be?

HD: Khalifa, the windmill warrior.

Where do you find new stories that you enjoy reading? Do you find them in magazines, online, from particular publishers? How do you discover new writing?

HD: Sometimes in magazines, but often on the internet.

What is your favorite under-appreciated short-story collection?

HD: Scapendo, by Moroccan writer Abdel Sami’ Bensaber.

Did you have a favorite book, story, or poem as a child or teen? What has its impact on you been?

HD: Mohamed Choukri’s For Bread Alone. . . I read it a lot in my teens and memorized entire sections of it. Its impact—later on—was that it made me believe that I could be whatever I wanted to be, since Choukri himself, despite the nature of the life he lived, was able to become what he wanted to be.

If you could change one thing about how publishing works, what would it be?

HD: Treating young writers with respect and encouragement instead of indifference, which leads them to surrender and say to themselves, “Why do we need this headache?”

Hamza Dahbi is from Morocco, holds a BA in Sociology and writes research, articles and stories.