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(Arabic) Peace be upon you.

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(Audience) (Arabic)
Peace be upon you.

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I was 17 when I finally
came back to Libya for good.

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Growing up in Switzerland,

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I believe the worst thing
that I found really challenging as a kid

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was how to spell the word "Switzerland."

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Even now, decades later,
as an assistant lecturer,

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I still despise writing that word.

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On my phone, I entered
this word in shortcuts,

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using the English transliteration
of "Sweesra," which is the Arabic version,

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and it would automatically
write it for me,

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so thank goodness for technology.

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There's so many daunting words
in almost all languages,

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either because of their spelling
or because of their meaning per se,

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but still, that's not an excuse
for us to not learn them.

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Life is a school, they say,

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and there are various elements

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that contribute
to the formation of knowledge.

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Early on in life, we learn
initially from our parents,

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but for certain mundane reasons,
they just can't give it all.

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And that's perhaps
why we need to go to school -

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in order to learn from other individuals
who specialize in this field or that.

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Therefore, our language skills
are established

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by means of absorbing the words
that float out of coarse materials

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and the mouths of our teachers.

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With words we speak,

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and through speaking, we express ourselves
and communicate with each other.

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But not all of us are gifted speakers.

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I for one am not an outspoken person,

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especially when it comes to expressing
my inner thoughts and true emotions.

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As a child, I was a very shy person,
especially with strangers,

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and no sooner, I found comfort in writing.

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In junior high school, I wrote
a short composition about my childhood,

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and at the end of that day,

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I discovered that my teacher actually read
that piece to almost half the school.

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He later on told me

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that my career would definitely
have something to do with writing,

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and even at that time,
I had a pretty good feeling that it would.

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In high school is when I actually started
to read full-length novels.

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My first classic novel
was written by Louisa May Alcott,

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"Little Women,"

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followed by contemporary works,
namely Mills & Boon's.

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When I was 14, 
I was obsessed by comic books,

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like almost any other teenager.

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I used to read Nabil Farouk.

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He's the writer of "Adham Sabri:
The Man of the Impossible."

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I also used to read the Archie comics.

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I was inspired by the character
of Betty Cooper to write diary entries,

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and I still do so till now.

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When I started college,

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I discovered that there was a sort
of lacking in my writing techniques,

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namely in organization,

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sentence structure and also focus.

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Now at that point,
I thought I had been an avid reader,

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and that shouldn't be a problem for me.

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But that actually urged me
to change my approach towards reading.

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I started reading as a student,

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which means not just reading for pleasure

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but also learning the tricks
of the trade from the masters.

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With further motivation
by my late colleague and mentor,

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Mrs. Sabah Kareem - God bless her soul -

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I decided to do
my masters degree in writing,

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and by the end of 2010,

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I received my degree in writing
for performance and publication

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from Leeds University.

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I had the greatest chance there

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of exploring my ability
in writing short stories

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as well as writing for stage and screen.

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Creative writing honors imagination,

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so why does it seem
like a secluded area or zone

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that we hardly delve into

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in order to give it the space
to thrive and to flourish?

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Allow me now to talk about my experience
teaching creative writing here, in Libya.

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And I say Libya as a whole

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because I believe

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this is an issue that prevails
in almost all regions here in Libya:

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the problem of learning
a foreign language and actually using it.

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In early 2010,

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shortly after I came back from the UK,

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I introduced creative writing
for the first time in Misurata University.

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I was so excited about the whole thing,

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but apparently, the students weren't.

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Only one student
enrolled for that semester.

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And therefore the course
had to be canceled.

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But the next semester was quite promising;

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I had 11 students - not bad -

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followed by 50,

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and then a whopping 80 at one semester.

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Now, for creative writing,
the number of students can be problematic,

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especially if they are crammed
in a classroom of 35 students or so.

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The real difficulty, however,
is when you realize

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that they actually don't get it.

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So how's that?

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Regardless of the many occasions
in which they come to me

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quite frankly and say, "We hate writing."

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I believe the dominant reasons
behind this hatred, in their opinion,

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is because "I don't know how to write,"

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and "Why should I? I don't have to."

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So "How do I write?"
versus "Why should I write?"

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Now, with regards to the first question,
I will not touch upon illiteracy,

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because definitely,

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anybody who has been through
a considerable amount of schooling

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would definitely know
how to put pen to paper.

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With creative writing,
I am dealing with writing short stories.

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And for that, you will need
to come up with ideas.

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Normally, ideas come from inspiration,

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and the thing that seems to hinder
my students is limited muse.

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They have confined, or limited, themselves

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into a very limited, basically,

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range of topics and themes,

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let alone a list of inadequate
words to choose from.

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Now, personally,

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I'm not very talented
in creating or conducting surveys,

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but according to my experience
teaching creative writing for three years,

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I believe the dominant topics and themes
that I have come across are as follows:

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So we have five columns.

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We'll start with poverty,

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poverty as a means
to actually lead the main character

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to take up jobs that are quite demeaning.

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For example, he has to cook in a kitchen,

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or he has to be a house cleaner,

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or maybe he becomes a thug.

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The second one -

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which is quite popular
by the girls, by the way -

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marriage.

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The main character
has to leave the one she loves

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in order to, you know, marry someone else

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who is either richer or has some kind
of higher influence in society.

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Cancer seems to be the winning ailment

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whenever there is a chance

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for them to talk about someone
who gets ill and later on dies.

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So this is the easiest way,
the easiest route, towards death.

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And then car accident.

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This is quite surprising to me

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because every time
they want to kill the parents,

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they have them killed in a car accident.

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Social disputes are namely inheritance,

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the ever-evil uncle

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and the love triangles
that happen at school.

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Now, some of you might think
that this is actually fine

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given the students' background.

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It actually is fine

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because people tend to write
about things that they know truly well.

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But the problem is when they write
about things or stories

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they believe is what other people
expect from them.

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This is where the limitation lies.

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Now, imagine, if we go back to this box,

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imagine this is the structure
of our culture - these five columns -

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incredibly limited,

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and at the same time,
it really gets tiring

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when you're subject to it every semester.

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There was this one semester
when I firmly announced to my students,

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"Please don't kill the parents
in a car accident.

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If you don't want them in the story,
then just keep them home, safe and sound,

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and then move on
to something worthy of telling."

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We need to think
outside this cultural box.

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A foreign colleague of mine once said,

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"We're dealing with students
who haven't really experienced life."

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And he was right.

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How can we expect creativity from students

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whose experience range is probably
three out of five of these columns?

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That is when we need
to put a book in one's hand.

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Reading not only makes you
become a better writer:

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Through living the lives
of fictitious characters,

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we learn from how they deal
with abnormal circumstances

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and learn from their mishaps.

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We also delve into the various
cultures of life, of the world,

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and there's our free ticket:

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we have successfully broadened our minds,

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and we're practically ready
for the extraordinary.

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So if we go back to this box

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and imagine that we have students

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who have read books that actually relate
to these topics and themes,

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What are the possibilities,

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what are the creative possibilities
that they will be able to present?

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So here we have the five topics
that I mentioned earlier,

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the five things that seem to be on repeat,

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and examples of novels
that deal with these themes.

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"The Hunger Games" is a very good example
that talks about poverty,

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by Suzanne Collins.

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The main character
is forced to enter a tournament

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where contestants actually
kill each other in order to win.

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There's an idea.

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The second one,

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"Pride and Prejudice," by Jane Austen.

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Now, this is a novel that's been written
almost 200 years ago,

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two centuries ago.

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The thing that makes it long lasting
and still alive is because -

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I mean for this specific
topic of marriage -

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is because the main character,
Elizabeth Bennet,

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actually opposed social code.

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Imagine that happening back then.

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"My Sister's Keeper"

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has brilliant issues
or cases of health issues,

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by Jodi Picoult.

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We have more than one, which is cancer.

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We have acute promyelocytic leukemia,

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which is blood and bone marrow cancer.

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We also have drug abuse in this novel
and a case of epilepsy.

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I will not comment on the car accident:
please don't kill the parents.

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So, moving on to social
disputes, the last one,

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"In the Country of Men,"
written by our very own Hisham Matar.

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Here we have a story about political chaos

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that actually affected a domestic life

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as a result to what was going on
here in Libya back in the '70s.

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So, before I move on,

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I'd like to quickly acknowledge
some of the previous works of my students

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who have been able to come up
with extremely creative stories.

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One student wrote a story
about an American who converted to Islam

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after living among a group
of Tuaregs here in Libya.

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A second good example is -
one of the students wrote about

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the struggle of a man who's trying to flee
the Rwandan Civil War in the early '90s.

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The third example
I'd like to present to you

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is about a creature
who's created from mist,

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and he's the last of his kind

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and the only one who's able
to stand in the face of evil.

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This was written by the translator
that's translating to you, by the way.

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So, going back to those two questions.

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How do I write
now that we've read,

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now that we've broadened our minds?

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Well, of course,

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you need to start reading books
that might be of interest to you

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and for authors who are actually -

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whose style of writing
you find interesting.

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And then you start putting pen to paper.

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You scribble.

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You draft.

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You redraft, maybe 100 times.

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And then you're done.

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The second question - why should I?

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Well, actually you don't have to write

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unless you're one of my students -

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then you just have to do it.

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Storytelling is an art;

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it allows you to translate
your inner thoughts

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and perhaps your philosophy in life.

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And that's actually why
people enjoy reading.

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There's a literature
that needs to be conveyed

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for generations to coexist and intertwine.

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I'd like to conclude
with a quote by Elif Shafak,

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the author of "The Forty Rules of Love."

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Okay.

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"Isn't connecting people to distant lands
and countries and cultures

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one of the great strengths
of good literature?"

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Indeed, it is.

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So let's start thinking outside that box.

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Thank you.

248
00:18:35,020 --> 00:18:36,619
(Applause)