Knowledge and imagination are the life buoy and the extra lung for breathing outside the walls of a tainted reality. Hassan Blasim More Quotes by Hassan Blasim More Quotes From Hassan Blasim The Iran-Iraq war began the same year that I went to primary school, at the age of six. Hassan Blasim iran war school All the children in the world, when they go to school, have the right to study in their mother tongue. But we go to school and run into literary Arabic as children. It sounds like a foreign language. The words for "house" or "table" or "lamp" are not the same as the words we use at home, and most of the other words are alien to children at school. Classical Arabic is one of the prisons of the Arab world. Hassan Blasim mother running children You learn something from the classics but your feelings and your imagination operate in the domain of the colloquial. We need to think seriously about reforming the Arabic that we use today. Hassan Blasim imagination feelings thinking I began writing and became attached to writing at an early age. I began by writing poetry and experimenting with dialogues: modest plays, in other words. I also used to describe at great length the way people in the area lived. Hassan Blasim play writing people The people in Arab countries are now speaking out and asking many questions about human rights, minorities, religion, democracy, "the other," and so on. Hassan Blasim rights country people In fact I didn't think about fear much at the time. I felt angry about everything that was happening around me: the violence of the dictatorship and the violence of society. Hassan Blasim violence facts thinking I'm not much interested in prizes, whether from the Arab world or from the Western world. Writing is a very difficult process and I want to continue my work. Hassan Blasim want writing world Some Iraqi writers are more daring today and have excellent imaginations and their material is rich in human experience. But the Arab prizes, once again, are part of the context of life in the Arab world - anarchy, confusion, and corruption. Hassan Blasim confusion imagination world My stories were translated and had many reviews before I had an interview with any international or Arab newspaper. If the stories hadn't succeeded, you wouldn't have asked me my position on Arab festivals and I wouldn't have been interested in the festivals anyway, because I would be in seclusion, writing. Hassan Blasim would-be stories writing When my stories were translated into other languages and received good reviews in the international press and won prizes, some Arab festivals and newspapers began to take an interest in what I had produced. This sudden Arab interest is a form of hypocrisy and nonsense. Hassan Blasim festivals hypocrisy stories For seven years I wrote and published my texts on the Internet and no Arab festival invited me and no Arab publishing house wanted to publish my books, and I wasn't known in the Western world because of my political positions. Hassan Blasim publishing-house book years I've been working on the margins and I was aware of this choice from the start. I buy most of what's written and produced in the Arab world and I don't much like it. Hassan Blasim margins choices world I live in a small country in Europe - Finland - and I don't speak English well and I had nothing to do with publishing houses in the West. I lived in complete isolation. Hassan Blasim publishing-house europe country
