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.
Excerpts from their answers will appear in the print collection, and they will also run in fuller versions online at ArabLit.
Syrian writer Haidara Nabeel Assad was a finalist for the 2024 prize with his story “The Boy on the Bus with Gooseflesh” (فتى الحافلة ذو القشعريرة). 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.
Haidara Nabeel Assad: I recently read two short-story collections by Rasha Abbas on the recommendation of a reader-friend. I was blown away by her style. A mix of originality and experimentation, of violent and poetic language, of clever metaphors and carefully captured and expertly woven details. I recommend: Adam Hates the Television and The Gist of It.
Tell us about an opening sentence you find particularly compelling, in any work of fiction.
Haidara Nabeel Assad: I love the opening paragraph of Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds. An epic in a few lines. I go back to it from time to time. The first paragraph reads: “There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to outcarol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain… Or so says the legend.”
What author, living or dead, would you like to have on WhatsApp?
Haidara Nabeel Assad: Ghada Al-Samman. I want to share some memes with her.
When did you start writing? Do you remember anything about the first piece you ever wrote, or the place that you wrote it?
Haidara Nabeel Assad: During school, of course. I used to jot down things that were between thoughts and classical poetry. But I don’t remember anything about the text or the place where it was written.
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?
Haidara Nabeel Assad: I write at a desk. Sometimes in bed. I’ve never written in a café.
What is one poem you have memorized that you sometimes recite to yourself?
Haidara Nabeel Assad: Bandar Abd al-Hamid’s “A Balance with Horror” and al-Ma’arri’s Daliyah poem.*
‘Daliyah’ refers to the rhyme scheme, where each line of the poem ends with the letter ‘dal.’
If you were asked to design a bookshop near your home, what would you make sure it had? Comfortable chairs? A hidden nook for reading? Coffee and tea? Something else?
Haidara Nabeel Assad: A hidden, quiet reading corner… a round table, a small stage without speakers, and of course lots of pots of basil and seasonal flowers.
If you were going to write using a pen name or pseudonym, what would it be?
Haidara Nabeel Assad: If I already have a pseudonym in mind, I don’t want to waste it so quickly…
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?
Haidara Nabeel Assad: In all of these. There are people whose pages I follow on Facebook just to read their stories. I discover new writing by digging. I don’t wait for a nomination, a map, or an award’s longlist.
What is your favorite under-appreciated short-story collection?
Haidara Nabeel Assad: الآباء يركضون by Linda Hussain.
Haidara Assad is a translator and culture editor who studied at the Faculty of Medicine, Damascus University.