Of all the literary genres that Egyptian authors compete over, travel literature is not one of them. However, a new book entitled “Oroba Btawqeet Embaba” (Europe in Embaba Local Time) has come to breathe new life into the genre.
Mahmoud Zaki’s first book, “Bartaman Nutella” (A Jar of Nutella) was a great success. In it, he provided some insight on his own weight loss, in addition to tackling the sensitive issue of obesity in a novel way: from the perspective of the obese. The young writer is once again taking bookstores by storm, but this time by writing about a completely different topic.
”Over the last four years, I have travelled to many countries in Europe and Asia and also visited the US, and I kept asking myself, should I write about my experiences travelling?” he said.
”Everyday, I encounter people who dream of emigrating or travelling abroad to escape their miserable circumstances in Egypt. As no one else has done so yet, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to tell people stories about travelling and to compare our country with others,” he added.
Recalling every detail about his previous trips was an obstacle that Zaki encountered early on in the writing process. Therefore, he spent two months thinking, remembering, reading and looking at photos before transforming these memories into clear words and ideas. However, he did not just depend on his own personal experiences, preferring to research extensively in order to further enrich his writing.
”I believe that travel literature has regressed in recent decades due to the evolution of technology. Nowadays, anyone can just Google a country, then watch, listen and read everything about it instead of buying a book; this was the most challenging issue,” Zaki said.
Zaki chose ”Embaba” in particular to symbolise low-income neighbourhoods in Egypt and to emphasis his ironic tone in his comparisons of Egypt to other countries, especially when discussing how he, an Egyptian, got by in Europe.
”I hoped to describe unique experiences that my readers would never find from a Google search. Here, the idea of a comparison between Egypt and European countries came to me; I want to shed light on the differences and the huge cultural gap between us and them in every aspect of life; from food, bathrooms, transportation, zoos, airports, revolutions, to the leadership and our histories,” he added.
A funny and embarrassing situation that Zaki remembers well is his visit to a small French town. He decided to wander around the town, on a kind of self-guided tour. He was impressed by the rule-keeping, as well as the infrastructure of the countryside; even the farmers were highly educated and showed great respect for the traffic lights.
”I wanted to give the locals a good impression of Egyptians so, even though there were no cars, I decided to wait for the red traffic light to turn green in order to cross the street. Ten minutes passed… then 20. Not a single car had come down the road and the traffic light was still red! I thought that the lights were broken so I attempted to fix them, when a small boy appeared out of nowhere and pushed a button. The traffic lights immediately changed to green. As the boy was crossing the road, he turned and gave me a strange look that I understood well: the look you only give to a complete idiot,” he narrated.
The novel includes many personal experiences, funny situations and difficult times he has experienced during his trips around the globe; readers can also find advice and tips for travellers and the dos and do-nots of being abroad.
”After my first book ‘Bartman Nutella’ became a 2015 best seller, I have faith that writing is the right path for me. I would prefer to keep branching out in my writing, so after my books about losing weight and travelling, I believe that my next project will be a collection of short stories about real cases of psychiatric patients that I witnessed myself when I was working on some reports as an investigatory journalist,” he concluded.
