The writer, doctor, Dr. Hana Hijazi, attracts her reader with the positive energy in her writing. Working with literature is problematic and a solution, longing and misery, pleasure and fatigue at the same time. The artist formulates her ideas in a work of mesmerizing colours. Here we open the door to dialogue with the author of “Two Women” on several issues to bridge the silent gap between life’s questions and writing answers. Here is the text of the dialogue.
• Do you think of the quality of the reader at the time of writing?
•• This never happens to me, I speak as if I am talking to myself, and I always feel that someone is listening and that he will understand me.
• To what extent do you believe in the saying “to each whose name is a share”?
A: I once wrote an article in English when I was participating in the International Writing Program in “Iowa City” on this topic, and it was specifically about how much I resemble my name. I do not believe much in the saying, although I believe that I resemble my name. So long after I didn’t believe it, I didn’t like my name as a kid, that’s changed now.
• By virtue of your work (doctor), writing is a cure? Or unloading shipments? Or a presence?
Writing is all of that and more. Writing is life, with all the joys and troubles that life brings. Writing is the air I breathe, the fatigue that exhausts the nerves and the ointment that removes pain at the same time. Writing is everything, and it is also the confusion that you want to confuse the other with without doing so in an embarrassing way, to feel that you are addressing the world, without knocking on the door of the world individually, because that would be embarrassing for you and the other.
• To whom do you attribute the virtue of your attachment to culture and literature?
•• To my brother, who used to bring books to the house, and to my mother, who instilled in my brother a love of books when she used to bring him her brothers’ books from her family’s home.
• When did awareness of the necessity of written commitment begin?
•• The first awareness of the love of writing began since childhood. I think that awareness began when publishing began, but the awareness of the need to adhere decisively that I am a writer and that I must sit down to write on a daily basis began after I went to the global program, and I met writers from all over the world, and I realized that I must To look at myself as a writer as the world looks at me, and since then I committed myself, and as a result, I started writing novels.
• What is in your business from you?
A: I believe that there is a lot of it in the works of every writer. My writings are mosaics, a mixture of things I lived and things I saw and things I heard about, in them from me and my friends and people, from men I knew and men I heard about and men I do not want to know. My works certainly contain me, but they are not Me, sure too.
• Why did you put on the cover of your book “Did you see me… I was walking in the street” phrase texts? Who did you address your letter to?
•• “Texts” because they were not subject to one category. They included stories, poetry, and essays. I wanted to put together a book that expresses me and everything I write in all formats. It was not a message. I do not send messages when I write. I know that I said that in one of the meetings about my book, “Different.” But the truth is that when I write, it is not in my mind or my plans to send a message. to anyone.
• “Two Women” is a remarkable work. Where does its strength lie in its language or its cause?
•• In the two together, the form and content in literature are one, you cannot separate them from each other, this is literature in my opinion.
• How much do you believe in experimentation? Story, poem, novel, article?
A: I do not understand the meaning of experimentation in writing, but I always write in the spirit of innovation, I just write, I do not sit down and say I will now write a story that contains experimentation, I do not understand that, and I do not know how that can be.
• What is the silence that you would like to write about, and you are still hesitating?
•• What I want to write about I write about, there is nothing in my mind that I haven’t talked about, and whoever reads my novels realizes that.
• When did you feel the victory of your writing over reality?
•• In the story “Did you see me.. I was walking in the street”, it was a dream of a girl who wanted to walk in the street of their house while her hair was flying behind her, the dream came true, and in the story of a girl there was a girl suffocating waiting for the driver in front of her college, and asking why she could not drive her car ..was that the question?
• Have you left the mantle of Fayez Abba completely?
•• When were you under the mantle of Fayez Aba? I owe a lot to Fayez Aba, with the world of culture and writing and the writers I knew through him, but since the beginning of writing I have had my own unique style that caught his eye personally. I tell you the truth, the question surprised me, because anyone who has read Fayez knows that we are very different in terms of expression and perhaps even life.
• Who is the Saudi narrative icon?
A: There is no Saudi narrative icon. There are brilliant women writers whom I enjoy reading, but there is no icon. Do you think that exists? Who do you think she is?
• Where do you find yourself between several tasks, some of which are practical, including family and literary ones?
A: I find myself in all of that, and I try to be sincere in all of that. Sometimes I feel like I succeeded with distinction, and sometimes I feel like I’m a failure with distinction, but that’s life, isn’t it? Perhaps that is what keeps us going, hoping for the best every time and in everything.
• Don’t you think that your book “The Asperger’s Child Is Different, But No Less” can be turned into a movie or a TV show?
•• I see that all my work can be turned into a movie or television work; Because they all talk about our current reality; Asperger’s child in particular because he talks about special cases, but if this is done, it will be very difficult, and certainly it will be very different from the book and the case that the book talks about. I believe, in general, that a writer whose book is turned into a work of art should not interfere in the conversion process and let the screenwriter and director do what they see fit for the process.
• How much time do we need for fictional works to become cinematic films?
•• The time is set by our filmmakers; Because the novels are there and ready, it depends entirely on them. They are the ones who determine how much time they need to pay attention to fictional works and draw ideas from them, as is the case in world cinema. Our screenwriters have not yet realized that world cinema is based in a large part on works of fiction.
• Why is there concern about the tyranny of art over art? A: I am not worried about that. I believe in the coexistence of the arts, and that there is a recipient for every art.
• To whom is the future artistically for the narration? Or for hair? Or for the picture?
A: For everyone, the decline in reading does not mean that there are no more readers, and poetry, after its decline, has returned to the forefront of the scene again. Because I imagine that they are not in competition, and that the three will remain, and each of them is tributary to the other.
• Are you bothered by the abundance of writers at the expense of readers?
•• Never. On the contrary, an abundance of writers means an abundance of readers. What bothers me is the fact that there are writers who do not read. This is the real disaster. I once asked a beginner who wanted tips to start writing but didn’t read, “Have you ever seen a film director who doesn’t watch movies?”
• What new are you working on? I am experimenting with writing a screenplay. I might stop at any moment, we’ll see.. I have more than one book and more than one painting in my mind. I will be back home soon and will be working on a new art exhibition.
