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When The Prayer of Anxiety was announced as the winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction on Thursday, the judging panel at the Abu Dhabi ceremony noted how the pensiveness pervading the characters and prose left readers ill at ease.
The same could be said for winning author Mohamed Samir Nada, who described the nomination process as nerve-racking.
“I remember asking the panel, almost half-jokingly, why it takes 70 days for shortlisted authors to wait to find out if they’ve won,” he tells The National.
“While I am honoured and extremely happy to win, the whole process has been a form of torture and I was too anxious to write anything. I’m glad there’s some closure now and I can return to some form of normality.”
Not so fast. As the award winner – the prize includes $50,000 and an English translation of the novel – Nada will make a number of public appearances at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, beginning tomorrow and running until May 6.
“Now, this is something I don’t mind,” he beams. “I don’t think many people understand how important book fairs are when it comes to Arabic literature.
“It’s a place where many writers found their first inspirations to write their stories. Whenever I go to a book fair, it always puts whatever achievement I have into perspective because of the great works that are already out there. It reminds me that I am first and foremost a reader who views writing as a healthy hobby.”
Indeed, The Prayer of Anxiety was written in the gaps between Nada’s current job as a finance director in a Cairo company. He describes the job as one “where rules are followed and there is a strict order to things. Hence why I write, it’s the only time I feel really free.”
It is a fitting irony given the claustrophobic and cagey atmosphere of Prayer of Anxiety, set in an isolated village where residents believe they are surrounded by a minefield.
With the authorities as their only link to the outside world, they are led to believe that former president Gamal Abdel Nasser is still alive; that the war with Israel that began in 1967 is continuing; and that their village may be the country's first line of defence.
Nada says the narrative ploy is more than an attempt to write an alternative fictional account of the region. Many of the issues it raises remain pertinent today, particularly in the context of the Israel–Gaza war.
“I really wanted to explore the idea of how disinformation can control a modern society,” he adds. “Social media was supposed to provide freedom of expression, but it ended up becoming a tool for those who want to control public opinion.
“Just look at what has been happening in Gaza over the past two years and the timid reaction from the American and European media.
“It makes you wonder what people in those parts of the world are actually seeing – and what they are not being shown. For me, this is a form of falsification and deception, and it is something I really explore in the book.”
Told through the lives of eight interlinked characters – from a parent anguished by his son’s conscription into the army due to a clerical error, to a family desperately seeking a veterinary surgeon to save their dying livestock – worry and anxiety course through their lives, blinding them to the wider restrictions imposed on their community.
That mosaic of paranoia and deception is the point, Nada notes. “And I really do feel that this has been the emotional state of the Arab world since the Nakba in 1948,” he says.
“Ever since, there has been this feeling that everyone is just engrossed in their own worries, no matter how big or small, without looking beyond them.
“In Egypt, where I am from, the main anxiety shared by everyone – no matter your salary – is: how can I secure the bread and butter for my family? It is a state of mind that is hard to escape, and perhaps we are not encouraged to escape it.
“Because once we do, we might start asking better questions about our lives and dreaming bigger – for ourselves, our families, and our communities.”
This is the main takeaway Nada hopes readers carry from The Prayer of Anxiety, which he describes as ultimately a hopeful book. “The story is narrated by a survivor, so that tells you there is still hope for us to change our condition,” he says.
With the Ipaf award providing funding for a future English translation, Nada is excited to see whether the pain imbued in his story can resonate beyond the Arab world.
“The prospect of having non-Arabs read my work is really exciting,” he says, before adding: “It is also a test. I want to see if they can understand and empathise with our misery and the suffering of our people – and grasp what it means for us to live in a country that is not occupied.”
