Six months ago, the young writer Ammar Salah (29 years old) used to spend at least four hours a day in front of his laptop screen, writing down lines and then erasing them sometimes, or rephrasing them in different structures, shooting his fingertips at the keyboard with the magician’s lightness, As soon as a thought flashes in his mind, it adds to his virgin narration an addition of some sort.

So far, Salah has managed to finish 19 chapters (out of 25 chapters) of his novel, which he hopes to finish around next October, as Salah explains to "Khuyut", indicating that he based most of the events of his novel on real stories, including events he experienced personally, and others he captured from trusted acquaintances, and he sought to use them to create a parallel reality in the structure of the novel.

In an interview with "Khuyut", Salah mentioned somewhat in summary that the idea of ​​the main novel discusses the issue of racist discourse practiced by the parties to the conflict in Yemen against each other, and its repercussions on the life of the Yemeni citizen in general.

Reality Challenge

The last five years in Yemen witnessed an unprecedented literary movement, despite the obstacles that were a result of the war raging in the country since March 2015, which has had its consequences on all sectors. However, in a different way the literary momentum has expanded and grown, bypassing the economic and security conditions that distracted attention governmental and popular to issues other than literature. What happened on the artistic and literary level was contrary to what was expected, as the names of young Yemeni poets and writers excelled at the local and Arab levels in various fields such as poetry, novel, historical story and others.

This is what the poet Zain al-Abidin al-Dhubaibi refers to in an interview with “Khuyut”, to the people and society’s preference for poetry, novels and fiction stories, in order to escape from the painful news of reality that the media has become constantly recounting. Therefore, he tries through his poems to explain the reality and the daily life events through poetry in which he tries to highlight the role of literature. He believes that literature is essentially “an open human discourse of all mankind of all races and orientations.” He says: “From this standpoint, poetry in particular, and literature in general, can be considered a message of rejection of all forms of racial, class, and regional discrimination. According to this concept, the writer must direct his pen to address everything that contradicts the human dimension of the lofty message of literature, which deals with human beings as equal, and does not leave room for classifications that have been found over time to oppose human rights and the values ​​of coexistence in which everyone is equal," Al-Dhubaibi said.

Literature is a good remedy

What is the use of literature?! with this question, the novelist and writer Wajdi Al-Ahdal initiates his conversation to "Khuyut", and answers himself saying: "Many writers and intellectuals view it as something useless, but when a society suffers from the tendencies that irritate the masses behind sedition, literature is the panacea for all these social troubles. Fiction is able to heal minds from the epidemic of social class and narrow affiliations, and from the diseases of fanaticism, and it is the only means that can transform the human being from a predatory beast, into a tolerant and far-sighted person.

Al-Ahdal confirms his concentration on discussing these public concern issues and include them in most of his literary works, looking for solutions for them as he says: “In The Land of Happy Conspiracies novel, I touched on the issue of slavery, because Yemen is one of the few countries in the world where this moral crime is still practiced, and from time to time, media reveals documents of trading slaves and concubines, and all of these are Yemenis but of black skin.

Also, in (a country without a sky), I dealt with the issue of racism against women, which is discrimination of multiple forms and dimensions. Society often practices this racism with the consent of the woman herself, for example, women in Yemen cannot exercise their presence in the public sphere except within narrow limits, and within the social hierarchy, the position of women is socially inferior even within the family.

 Moral examination

Literature was and still is the successful idea and the top means to unite the country and destroy racist and regionalist ideas in Yemen and the Yemeni Writers Union was the first unitary civil society institution. It brought together writers from the north and south, so that, for the first time in the country’s history, writers were able to move from the southern part to the northern part, without going through the usual split procedures at that time.

Here, writer Rayan Al-Shaibani speaks to “Khuyut” and says: “Despite the great role of the Yemeni Writers Union in unifying the word of writers and consolidating the principle of unity, its disappearance and the waning of its role recently made the writers face a difficult moral test. Therefore, it is important during the current moral exam period, that writers line up with their general principles, and refrain themselves from falling into the pitfalls of the current situation. Hence, public rely on them to pave the road and bridge the chasm created by politicians.