Dubai: Any creation of a utopia comes with its own problems, acclaimed Canadian author Margaret Atwood said at the second gala evening of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature on Wednesday night.
"There are certain things in every society that we know about, that's always focused attention on one way or another. Recently I've been writing about utopias and dystopias and worlds in the future… Food, clothing, gender relationships, power relationships, who is in charge? How do we arrange status; and all societies have these, even though they think that they don't, they do," she said to conversation host Rosie Goldsmith.
"If you look at any society… you see that people have arranged things in certain ways. Right now at this moment in time in history, we've just seen an extraordinary example, in that the people of Egypt have rearranged that power structure. They rearranged it themselves, without outside help as far as we know," the novelist said.
Atwood proceeded to read from her 1986 novel The Handmaid's Tale. The regime in this novel, the writer said, is based on parts from the Old Testament.
"Very destructive things… were causing social turmoil, and into that power vacuum has come a new regime, and the question I asked myself was if you wanted to do that in the United States - if you wanted to do a totalitarian take over of the United States — how would you do it?" she asked.
Her characters bring in a totalitarian religiously-based organisation, which overthrows the US government.
The themes of women empowerment and roles in society are explored throughout the book, which has since been adapted for film, screen, stage and radio and has won the author two awards.
It has been nominated for three other awards, including the 1986 Booker Prize.
Atwood's long-spanning career has also seen her publish nine works of non-fiction, six children's books, nine collections of short fiction and 17 volumes of poetry.
West meets East
In a Festival First, a cultural exchange from West to Middle East took place as Emirati poet Nujoom Al Ganem read from Atwood's novel Cat's Eye, in Arabic.
An audible gasp of obvious delight arose among the audience as Atwood returned the compliment, reading a selection of Nujoom's poetry that have been translated into English.
The Emirati started writing poetry in the late 1970s and began publishing in UAE newspapers.
"The opportunity to publish has been there since the early 1980s. Now we are continuing the journey, we are getting better in our own time," Nujoom said. "My poetry is very personal," she added.
At school, Atwood continued, teachers would ask students to put a piece of poetry into prose — something she didn't see the positive aspects of. "So ‘to be or not to be, that is the question' would come out as ‘what am I going to do'," the Canadian author said to the amusement of the audience.
Cultural fusion
The cultural fusion continued into the second half of the gala evening, after a performance of two classics by the Dubai Sinfonia, conducted by Martyn Bagnall.
Chinese poet Yang Lian was the first to read his work in Cantonese captivating the audience that was moved by his recital. Host of the second half Paul Blezard read the English translations.
"Poetry is our unique mother tongue," Lian said after he took to the podium, pointing out that the word for "poetry" in Arabic is only slightly different to the same word in his native language.
Renowned poets Nathalie Handal (French, Arabic and English), Dha'en Shaheen (Arabic), Simon Armitage (English) and Benjamin Zephaniah (English) read poems in their respective languages.
Zephaniah wowed the audience with Dub performance poetry before the night came to a close. Atwood's next work In Other Worlds will be available from October 18 this year.
Angels of Absence
My mother lets her prayers escapeTo every other morning,To every passer-by who carries our news,As she exchanges blames with GodBecause He has not yet granted her wishes
Fever draws herTo sanatoriumsAnd gardens she thinks will cure her painsBut she falls once moreHitting her bloodAs if it were a life jacket
I look at the rangeThe walls are mightyAnd so are sorrows
I will leave everything in placeEven the dust accumulated over the treesSo that they too will knowHow our bodies are pained when no one touches them
Scattered by the wind…That's howShe sawHer death
I will be happyI told my heart that made me dizzy with its sorrowsAnd I lit a candle for the angelsAnd another oneFor the love that inspired me with poetry.
— Nujoom Al Ganem
