Cities without Palms and Other Writings by Tarek Eltayeb - 2/2

In a desperate attempt to save his mother and two sisters from famine and disease, a young man leaves his native village in Sudan and sets out alone to seek work in the city. This is the beginning of Hamza's long journey. Hunger and destitution lead him ever farther from his home: first from Sudan to Egypt, where the lack of work forces him to join a band of smugglers and finally from Egypt to Europe - Italy, France, Holland - where he experiences first-hand the harsh world of migrant labourers and the bitter realities of life as an illegal immigrant.

Tarek Eltayeb's first novel offers an uncompromising depiction of poverty in both the developed and the developing world. With its simple yet elegant style, Cities without Palms tells of a tragic human life punctuated by moments of true joy.

Part Two of the interview

Q: What was the inspiration for "Cities without Palms" and which cities without palms are explored here?
Tarek: The inspiration is simply all those young people one meets in the countries in which I was born. Young people without HOPE. No good education, no health facilities, no future, just fighting for survival, getting no support from the governments, growing up in a world of poverty, hopelessness and corruption.

I wanted to give a voice to all those who are born in this part of the world, forced to leave their countries, simply to try to survive, or support their families in their fight for survival.

I wanted to describe the reality- for the other part of the world to understand.

Q: There are several issues central issues, for example migration to the north. Words that come to mind are "it’s just you and the great deep, in this situation; you cannot hedge your bets. It's all or nothing. You are leaving what is familiar and plunging into something so immense and unpredictable that no person or thing can prepare you for it. It looks like an ordinary day to the rest of the world, but you know that everything is heightened now. You are in a responsive and magical universe and surrendering to it". You acknowledge the issue, but do not show the way out…why?
Tarek: I should like to speak in the name the book’s hero Hamza. He is 17 years old, has little education from the Quranic School, he has to act more from out of his instincts and intuition. He manages to go to the 'north", is taking the chance, and finding the end that it was all - in vain.

It is voice such as Hamza that is all too often ignored in our intellectual world. If only we would listen more and watch carefully, we could understand much more.

Q: Another issue is the issue of poverty. A passage from the "Cities without Palms reads: "a bleak place, with little hope for the future, where even the palms trees have almost all died. Hope must life elsewhere". What his hope and where lies home?
Tarek: Hamza is fighting for himself and his family. There is no hope in his village. That’s why he is moving to another place in search for possibilities for earning money. His journey means that he has not given up "hope" completely.

There is still some "hope" in him and taking him forward from one place to the other and is not giving up. His whole journey from one city to the other is a nightmare and a journey of losses, but he never loses "hope" completely and even has moments of happiness and even joy.

Q: "Cities without Palms" is also a journey through time and space… which time and which space?
Tarek: Hamza moves from a very poor place and bad time to another one, expecting that it will get better. But then it turns out that also the "new" places are not good for him, or those like him who do not belong to any of those new places and times he passes. They are not accepted by those societies.

Your hero - Hamza - eventually returns to the wadi, and swallows the bitterness of loss - estrangement. Has your second novel "The Palm House" more answers in this respect?
Tarek: "The Palm House" can be read independently from "Cities without Palms". But one meets Hamza again and of course there are some similarities with "Cities without Palms". One learns more about Hamza’s childhood in the village, about his family and his life before he immigrates to Vienna.

There he meets a young woman, and after some time he feels ready to remove one stone after the other from his heart in tells her about his life. The love for Sandra enables him to speak about his past and at the same time enables him to think about his future.

Q: "The Palm House", already received glaring reviews. Your hero Hamza travels to Austria with a copy of 1001 Night Tales and the singer Asmahan’s song "Nights of Pleasure" and earns love from a lovely Austrian lady. Did you want to say that despite differences we may have, it is "humanity" which is the ultimate bonds between us and hope can or should be build upon?
Tarek: Yes, "humanity" is the ultimate bond between us. We are loosing much of our "humanity", when we try to emphasize the differences and build borders between us. Sandra, the young woman Hamza meets in Vienna, wants to listen and know his story, wants to understand and get to know him.

When she learns more about Hamza - step by step - she also learns more about herself.

Q: Your other Viennese writings breath self impose isolation, loneliness, and sadness of some sort but which gave impetus to creative action. Two novels, a number of published short stories, plays, poetry, paintings…. The words that come to mind are "here I come in self-annihilation and the grandeur of inspiration to cast of rational demonstration by faith in the savior/to cast off the rotten rags of memory by inspiration / to cast aside from poetry all that is not Inspiration". Are you pleased with responses to your writings?
Tarek: I am very pleased with responses. I began to write in Vienna, because I did not have many friends here, almost lost my language, as there were only very few persons I could speak in my mother tongue. At the same time, I also lost many of my friends due to my absence of Egypt.

I started to write out of feeling of loneliness and isolation and it certainly paved the impetus for creative writing in those days. In meantime, I feel in Vienna at home, but did not forget the world where I come from. In Vienna I found my place, have through writing found many friends all over the world.

I always say that am living in two worlds - not between two worlds.

But at end, it is all - one big world.

Q: One of your favorite subjects is how human beings adapt to foreign surroundings in which they feel lost and how can they fit into a different society without giving up their own personality. Please expand?
Tarek: The thing I learned early in my new surrounding in Vienna that it is me who is the foreigner, and not others and that I should be take an interest in this society and find a place in it. But to become a member of this "new" society into which you were not born, it requires efforts from both sides. At the same time, it is important to keep your own identity or to assimilate yourself. I am convinced that there are a many things which can be added to one’s identity - without losing it.

For me "identity" is something that is changing all the time.

Q: Allow a glimpse into the setting in which you work and write, some of your favorite books, music, sayings, interesting undertakings you wish to share?
Tarek: I like to go to concerts, museums, exhibitions, readings, movies and so on. I always gain so much from those visits. Often and - without being prepared - I see, watch, hear or learn something that influences my work.

For example this very moment, am answering you questions I am sitting in a corner of a nice hotel in southern Tunisia and there is all this noise in the background. A man is playing a piano, doing mistakes and he tries his best to sing. But am really enjoying it.

Two little children are running, jumping and crying around me. I stopped writing and watch them for a while. I think of these little things, short moments that just happen in our lives, they are important, even if we do not consider them as essential. Yesterday I met an old lady who owns a mill. She invited me to make grain corn - I will keep these moments in my memory and probably there will be a text about it one day.

There is so much in our life that surrounding us, that would be worth to give more attention.

I meet very simple people and I learned so much from them.

Tarek Eltayeb, thank you very much.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tarek Eltayeb was born in Cairo in 1959, the son of Sudanese parents. Since 1984 he has lived in Austria, where he is currently a professor a the International Management Center of the University of Applied Sciences at Krems. He is the author of two novels as well as short stories and poetry.

EXCERPTS FROM TAREK`S WRITINGS

The Start of Summer
Isolation: I imposed it on myself intentionally. My fortunate material circumstances allowed me to live in this peaceful district, far from the centre of town, in a spacious apartment on the top floor of a modern building. From up high I bear witness to the beauty of the city, and enjoy the peace of my solitude. When evening comes, and the city dresses in its evening clothes and peace sinks into humble repose, my link with the world is severed at last. I put out the lights and unite with the awe of nightfall in a mournful lover's prayer.

In the morning I stand behind the sound-proofing window of the living room and watch the stillness of those staying and the motion of those moving off. I commune with nature in my own way. I read it from behind the window pane, and do not allow my ears to eavesdrop, so as not to spoil the invented conversations taking place in my imagination, where I set it up in whatever way I please with who and what I see.

The weather has turned. The heat becomes intense at times, and I have no choice but to open the window from time to time to change the hot air for a refreshing breeze. But the world appears differently to me. Its presence is an imposition on my isolation, and my sense of hearing overwhelms all the other senses, forcing me to listen in whether I like it or not. And so I hear a babbling, a rustling and a barking, and a clamor of vehicles that I do not see. And so it goes on every day, and so the noises go on, and so the purity of my isolation is corrupted.

One day, I opened the window to air and, as usual, was forced to listen in. But something was different. A new sound stood out from among the collection of sounds that I heard. It was a bright cooing. I put my head out of the window, and found her, close to the window, walking up and down on the broad ledge, moving her neck back and forth in a regular swaying movement of meditation in which the delicate colours of fantasy rippled down her neck. I stood looking at her, trying not to move suddenly so that she should not fly away. She stayed, looking at me, and I at her, for some time, the gap fixed between us, astonishment on my part and fear on hers. I went back in to get something for her to eat, and when I returned she was not there.

She appeared the following day at the same time, and stood in the same place. I had made ready some seed for her, hoping for her return. I put it out for her on the window ledge. She thought at length, approached slowly, and then she ate. And so she began to come every day at the same time, and gradually she overcame the limits of her imagined fear. I got used to her and became fond of her. I began to wait for her.

Autumn
Whenever she came I would leave the window open and move back a little to allow her to come in. She remained hesitant for days, but what with the bothering of the wind and the seed's blowing off the window-sill in gusts, at last she entered, fearful of me and ready to escape at any moment. In time she became used to coming straight into the living room and would eat quickly from the food I had kept for her, watching me all the while, after which she would retreat quickly to the window. And so it went on, so that she got into the habit of staying longer with me and I would set aside a weekly sum for her feed.

From "A Camel Does Not Stop In Red", short stories, Al-Hadara Publishing House, Cairo 1993.

IMAGE: Tarek Eltayeb by Hans Labler