Carolina QuotesIsraelis are always minor characters in my books. Why? Because in reality we only come into contact with soldiers and other representatives of the occupation. We have minimal contact with Israeli civilians. How can I write about somebody or something I don't really know? Despite my best intentions and feelings for them as fellow human beings, I can't capture them as full-rounded figures. After all, what is literature? It reflects life, society, and the people who live there. Not in the same way that a photograph does, of course, since the author's personal feelings and opinions will be blended in. An author also strives to transcend reality and make it more beautiful and valuable. You could say that I have one obligation in my writing and that is to reflect the lives of people living under the occupation. My literature is highly political, as our lives are dominated by politics. But it is not dry or rigid, as you might easily imagine. My characters are full of life. They are flesh and blood. You can feel them, smell them, and touch them.
Sahar Khalifeh Connected to the Carolinas
Source
No citation is recorded for this quotation.
- form
- interview
- work
- Interview (2004)
- year
- 2004
no citation recorded
Cite this record
“Israelis are always minor characters in my books. Why? Becau…” Sahar Khalifeh. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-7560C4BDE9. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/7560c4bde9
More from Sahar Khalifeh
On the whole, the situation for Palestinian women today is just as it was. There have been no real changes, though there are of course more educated women, more female doctors, university lecturers, artists, and writers. But they come from the elite classes and live in a completely different world from the masses. The truth is that the Islamist movement has had a great influence on the masses over the past 30 years, and has robbed women of many of the few small victories that we had achieved. So what do we need? First and foremost, we need better political leadership, a leadership that takes women seriously and introduces laws that entail that women are treated as equals. Personally, I am working for liberation and human rights for all. Despite the many setbacks, I still believe that I have had a certain influence. I was the first feminist in the Arab world to write about women's issues in a literary form. I have had some influence on educated women, but I have not had much influence on men-and it is men who dominate society here, at all levels.
I think that readers of novels usually read for enjoyment and a little inspiration and knowledge. Readers of novels, I think, are not skeptical like those who read works of social sciences or history. They already know that what they are reading is fiction despite the fact that, at times, that fiction might have elements of truth in it. Even when that fiction is realistic, they know that the reality they are reading is not 100% real. It is a reality that is seen through the eyes of the novelist or created by the novelist. And this is what I consider bliss because it gives me, and gives other novelists, an open space where we can play with reality, or have fun with reality, or ignore reality altogether.
(Who are some of the writers you enjoy reading and re-reading?) SK: Dostoevsky and Simone De Beauvoir. Since I was a young teenager, I started reading them and I never stopped...Those two writers affected me deeply. But this is not the whole truth. The truth, the real truth, is that the writer, any writer, is made by all the readings she or he makes. We are influenced not just by one or two or ten writers. We are influenced by everything we read. Whether we are aware of this fact or not makes no difference. We read, we devour. We digest what we read and grow. Just like food. Without food we never grow. Without reading we never write.