Literary salons… were bombed – Arab Press

The Daraj Al-Suri website published an article by writer Hala Ibrahim in which she discusses the impact of the war between Hezbollah and Israel on the cultural and literary salons held in southern Lebanon. The author also talks about the reasons why women attend these salons at a higher rate than men, and the secret of women’s interest in reading in general and literature in particular. We introduce the following from the article:
We postponed the Nabatiye Book Salon for the third time in a row. War attacks are increasing, parades have not left our skies for months, and movement on the roads seems dangerous.
For several years, a group of people from Jabal Amer (South Lebanon) have met monthly to discuss a book. Books are our gateway to another kind of friendship, its perspective and the tracking of the dramatic trajectory of events and characters, creating between us connections and bonds that life could not provide in any circumstances.
Most of our group were women, but we attended consistently, with few interruptions. Yet the hateful war that prevented us from meeting did not succeed in preventing us from reading. Our favorite entertainment, we brought taste and smell to life, we lived in safe cities, we emerged from the leaves, white rabbits and boats roamed the world.
In the preface to his brilliant essay “Why Do We Read Literature?”, Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature, points out that reading is gradually becoming a feminist activity, while men are always busy. Seeing many more important responsibilities than reading fall on their shoulders, they see reading as a luxury we can do without, or as a form of entertainment for those who have free time.
Vargas Llosa argues that women work fewer hours; he is wrong, and therefore they find plenty of time to read, to which he says: “I am happy for those women, but I feel sorry for the men and the millions who could read but choose not to.”
Women’s relationship with books is a phenomenon worth studying, as recent studies have shown that they are more inclined to read books in general and literature in particular. For us women, it seems that it is not just a matter of time, reading is an activity that makes us feel effective and fulfilled, making us more adaptable to reality. Maybe it is because, through reading, we overcome our own weaknesses and constraints, or maybe it is because it raises our bodies to an equal level, away from the frames imposed by the male gaze, the gaze of family and society.
We cling to such stories like a drowning man standing on tiptoe, head raised, the air full of all his blood, the sand betraying him, fooling him into thinking the ground is solid, his feet are stable. In this sense, reading becomes a rebellion through which walls are torn down, the fortresses that coil like snakes around our souls and bodies fall.
Here, women see that the freedom they gain through reading is permanent and deserved, and that they can build a different kind of society, one that not only accepts change but also loves it and seeks it. Paul Ricoeur said, “Life can only be understood through the stories it tells.” Needless to say, there are enough complexities in a woman’s life for her to be more enthusiastic about understanding and actually moving forward?
Without the memory of our grandmothers and the power of stories, who are we? Where would there be a caring, companionable hand to hold our hands if it were not for reading? Look long enough in the faces of the women and you will see Shahrazad, a woman drawn to the lure of stories, a woman who begins to tell stories from the Thousand and One Nights to save herself from death or her life. It doesn’t matter, what matters is that she believes the story is a means of redemption, equal to life.

original:
https://bitly.cx/K2iSE