At
that time, the publication of this electronic version marked the completion of
the theoretical framework for this emerging literary genre: the pictorial
autobiography, also known as photo-autobiography, following serious critical
engagement with prominent figures in Arab literature and art.
Today,
on a theoretical level, the concept remains unchanged. However, in terms of
events, earthquakes, upheavals, and significant incidents have occurred that
have altered everything that once constituted the core of the original story.
In other words, "I Would Have Loved to Tell It All," in its current printed form, and "When Photo Talks", in its electronic version published two
decades ago, are now only connected by the theoretical framework.
The primary objective of releasing the first experimental draft of my pictorial
novelistic autobiography was to gather as many reactions as possible from
readers and interested visitors. Consequently, notes and critiques began
flooding into my email inbox from every direction. This step proved beneficial
in two ways:
First, it attracted prominent Arab critics, writers, and artists to the
project with their suggestions and expectations, such as Dr. Zhour Karam, Dr.
Said Yaktin, Dr. Ezzeddine Al-Tazi, Dr. Thurayya Waqqas, Dr. Danha Toubia
Korkis, Iraqi novelist Burhan Al-Khatib, Iraqi singer Hussein Al-A'dhami,
Palestinian visual artist Aida Nasrallah, among others.
Second, it helped to crystallise the conceptual framework of this
nascent creative literary genre, which was subsequently published multiple
times on various Arab cultural platforms under the title: "Toward a New Creative Literary
Tradition: The Photo-Autobiography or the Pictorial Autobiography."
The pictorial novelistic autobiography—or photo-autobiography—as a newly
emerging literary genre, offers a fresh approach to the literary text and seeks
to develop it further. It is a new experiment in creative literary writing,
aiming to establish an artistic-literary form that transcends genres and
classifications. It combines words and images, blending elements of
autobiography, novel, correspondence, diaries, and reports to create a new
expressive space that merges documentation and enjoyment: individual and
collective history, visual and textual pleasure.
The novelistic autobiography is primarily an intimate text addressed to
the reader or audience. The voyeurism sought by some in this genre is akin to a
genuine artistic act that is free from costs, bills, and taxes. Just as the
writer places trust in the reader, the reader is expected to trust the writer
and their narrative, for the text is a personal history that can be broadened
and generalised to represent a national era or a period in a community's
history.
And when that novelistic autobiography becomes "pictorial," intimacy reaches its peak. The written
confession is reconciled with visual testimony, and truth becomes both the
starting point and the ultimate aim, within the aesthetic pleasure offered by
this new literary genre.
Literary creativity is spread across three major genres or expressive forms: theatre, poetry, and narrative. From these main genres, several subgenres develop. Within narrative, we can differentiate between fictional and documentary narration.
Fictional narration encompasses
the novel, the novella, the short story, and the very short story, also known
as microfiction. In contrast, documentary narration encompasses
autobiography, photoautobiography (a photographic-novelistic form of
autobiography), diary (an intimate piece of writing), memoirs, travel
writing, and correspondence.
Among the subgenres
stemming from fictional and documentary narration, the photographic-novelistic
autobiography seems to belong to both simultaneously, as it is both
fictional and documentary. Furthermore, it surpasses expressive genres by
embracing both literature and art. Due to this hybridity—and because it is an
Arab creation—it warrants support to become the new "Diwan al-Arab."
Since its earliest origins,
Arabic poetry has been regarded as the "Diwan al-Arab” (the record
of the Arabs), as it preserves their values, morals, history, glories,
genealogies, and conflicts. For a period, prose aimed to compete with poetry
for this title, through prominent literary figures like Abdullah Ibn
al-Muqaffa‘, Amr al-Jahiz, Badi' al-Zaman al-Hamadhani, and Muhammad al-Hariri
al-Basri—individuals who sought to elevate prose to the same honour
traditionally held by poetry in classical Arabic literature. However, poetry
fiercely resisted and ultimately retained the title.
Then, with the widespread
emergence of the novel in the last two centuries—as both a written and a read
form—voices began calling for the novel to become the new "Diwan
al-Arab." And today, with the release of "I Would Have Loved to
Tell It All" (the first photographic-novelistic autobiography in the
history of Arabic literature and art), I expect that in the coming decades,
this new creative literary form will become the new "Diwan al-Arab."
It offers direct, clear, and explicit documentation of a social, national, and
global era—through an individual's eyes—using literature and photography,
creative writing and journalistic reporting, correspondence and diaries, facts
and leaked recordings, all in pursuit of presenting the complete historical truth—free
from any falsehood, claim, or ideology.
Because life is measured in
seconds, not in centuries or eras—and because autobiography is the written
mirror of life—faithfully recounting life in its details requires a parallel
life in time and existence to ensure accurate recollection before narration.
But that is not the only challenge. Writing an autobiography in general, and a
photographic-novelistic one in particular, requires the selection of a specific
perspective through which the story will be retold—a particular observing eye
and a distinct narrative tone.
This, however, contradicts
the nature of life, which always involves contradictions: joy and pain, love
and hatred, care and neglect, presence and absence. Therefore, we can never
write our lives exactly as they are. But we can tell an autobiography through a
specific lens, where our life may seem as pure happiness, or pure misery, or
total isolation and loss. In the end, it is nothing more than an artistic work
that uses our life, its events, and our experiences as material for
storytelling.
And because autobiography
cannot be written twice, this autobiography began twenty years ago—but I
stopped working on it many times along the way.
The initial pause in
writing stemmed from the scarcity of photographs, especially during childhood.
At that particular stage, photography was regarded as a form of honour reserved
solely for those crowned with titles and successes, or as a means to freeze
time, such as in weddings, where the beginnings are the most celebrated
moments, or family gatherings where the fear of separation lingers at the
doorstep.
The second reason I
stopped was the loss of many photos and albums for reasons I still do not know.
The third reason for
pausing progress on my photographic autobiography was my conviction that I needed to wait for my personal experiences to mature, for my internal conflicts to resolve, and for my vision to become more refined.
The fourth and heaviest
reason was my preoccupation with my family life and responsibilities toward
my small household, which led me to stop writing altogether to conduct a
comprehensive self-critique of my entire creative journey, from A to Z.
Despite the numerous
obstacles faced by this project, an equally plentiful array of incentives acted
as a strong motivator to keep writing this photographic novelistic
autobiography.
The first motivation
was the desire to establish a new creative genre in contemporary Arabic
literature.
The second was a shift to a
new style in creative writing—magical realism, or fantastical realism—to
highlight the mystical as a natural part of everyday Arab life and
storytelling. The idea was that autobiography, although a non-fictional genre,
can equally convey the magical and marvellous as any fictional genre.
The third motive was to
illustrate the overwhelming nature of Arab reality itself—so intense that, in
the context of Arab creativity, there is no need to seek material in
imagination, nightmares, or hallucinations; reality alone suffices.
The fourth motive
was the writer's desire—the writer of "I
Would Have Loved to Tell It All"—to affirm his return to life,
much like the mythical phoenix rising from the ashes after being attacked by
those who sought to destroy him, both materially and symbolically.
The photographic
autobiography did not open itself to photography alone, as its label might
suggest. It also opened up to other forms of expression, including correspondence,
memoirs, diaries, reports, leaked audio recordings of events, and more. This is
what gave the photographic novelistic autobiography its multi-genre
nature.
This hybridity was also
reflected in the style of the work. Stylistically, "I Would Have
Loved to Tell It All" is built on a stylistic multiplicity that
any reader can recognise—whether in the nostalgia, the sarcasm in the census
diaries, the protest in the negotiations with the Ministry of Education's
regional office, or the condemnation in the public statements.
As for the plot
structure, the photographic novelistic autobiography, "I Would Have Loved to Tell It All", is divided into three major phases:
1.
The phase of life in paradise.
2.
The phase of choosing to empathise with those
in hell.
3.
The phase in which the narrator enters hell
alone, taking the place of the condemned, who are then freed and, in turn,
stone the narrator who replaced them in the inferno.
In terms
of chapter structure, the photographic novelistic autobiography is
divided into thirteen chapters, each representing a stage in the unfolding of
the story.
Chapter
One presents the
time and place of the story.
Chapter
Two introduces the
supporting characters.
Chapter
Three introduces
the opposing characters.
Chapter
Four signals the
emergence of narrative temptation—the beginning of the story's deeper allure.
Regarding artistic
technique, the photographic autobiography manipulates the three main elements
of narrative writing: narration, dialogue, and description.
·
The narration in the photographic
novelistic autobiography operates on three levels: anticipatory narration,
concurrent narration, and report-style narration.
o Initially, anticipatory narration takes
precedence, establishing forward-looking expectations within a fragmented
narrative structure influenced by the image's authority—images that steer the
storyline and guide memory from chapter to chapter. This type of narration
manages the flow of images in subsequent segments.
o In the
middle, concurrent
narration emerges, mainly through diaries and correspondence, reinforcing a
chronological story.
o Towards the
end, the narrative
fragments into episodic or shattered storytelling throughh letters that
announce the journey's unexpected conclusions.
The dialogue component
plays a crucial role in the photographic novelistic autobiography because it
balances the visual, the written, and the spoken; the described and the
narrated; and the exchanges between characters—whether news, thoughts,
impressions, or emotions. Therefore, dialogue in this work is just as
functional as the image. Some chapters are rich in dialogue, while others lack
it for purely structural or functional reasons.
Regarding description,
in some chapters of "I Would Have Loved to Tell It All", the
introductory photograph acts as the driver and director of the narrative. In
others, it replaces traditional descriptive writing entirely, in favour of
linguistic economy. In yet other chapters, photographs were impossible due to
photography and recording being prohibited in certain settings. And in another
category of chapters, the picture serves as the most expressive medium, especially
in conveying the feeling of waiting, inviting the reader to pause and
contemplate the emotional void that waiting images evoke.
On the characterisation
level, the main protagonist in "I Would Have Loved to Tell It All"
is not a person but rather the book "History of Manipulating Professional
Exams in Morocco." This book ultimately dominates the narrator within
the text and steers the narrative voice, speaking in the first person from
before the novel begins to long after it ends. It becomes similar to a force of
fate beyond the narrator's control when it comes to portraying reality, yet it
remains closely linked to free will and the desire to amend that reality.
In the context of the photographic
novelistic autobiography, the image becomes the generative core of
the narrative. The narrator's task is to complete it, connecting the image to
past and future events to ensure continuity, cohesion, and narrative
progression.
Ultimately, the writing of
this photographic novelistic autobiography, "I Would Have Loved to Tell
It All”, aims to draw readers into an intimate world and a personal past,
with the hope that others will follow the same path, within the same expressive
framework, with different writers and storytellers. The goal is to create a
shared collective memory, not written by historians of emperors and sultans,
but by individual writers with their pens—and supported by their photographs—to
ensure their voices are heard.
As the butterfly effect
teaches us, a movement may start with a whisper. The flutter of a wing can
begin gently but sometimes results in a whirlwind, a vortex, a storm, or a
hurricane that seeks to clear the air on Earth's surface.
