In the Footsteps of Enayat Al-Zayyat

Author: Iman Mersal

In the early 1950s, two teenage girls would be seen by passersby on Qasr El Nil Street in downtown Cairo, in front of the "Nouvelles" shop windows; one a strikingly beautiful blonde, and the other a charming brunette, like Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"... A few years later, the blonde would indeed become a cinema star, famous as Nadia Lutfi, and carve out a distinguished history for herself in the Arab world. But what became of her brunette friend? In the early 1990s, after Nadia Lutfi retired from leading roles, a young expatriate poet walked the same streets, the city having lost the luster of its "golden age," and found a novel titled "Love and Silence" by an unknown writer named Enayat Al-Zayyat on an old bookstall. Its publication date dated back more than a quarter of a century. She brushed off the dust and bought the book. She then learned that Enayat – who had committed suicide before her novel was published – was none other than an old friend of Nadia Lutfi. Twenty more years passed, and the young poet became a distinguished poet and a professor of Arabic literature at a Canadian university, with the same old book still in her possession, and a haunting obsession with that rebellious soul who committed suicide in the prime of her youth, persistent as a hidden threat, leaving her with a question about the turning point that leads to such a decision. In its second release, the "Bila Dhefaf" (Borderless) series hosts Iman Mersal's new literary adventure, In the Footsteps of Enayat Al-Zayyat, where the poet traces the project of a unique writer whose work was aborted by unjust circumstances and laws. Through fieldwork, delving into archives of cases and newspapers, and extensive interviews with her relatives and acquaintances, especially the great artist Nadia Lutfi, and with a narrative that blends investigation with novelistic techniques, this journey restores the natural colors – not always cheerful – to many small stories, illuminating the realistic features of the "Golden Age" face, steeped in black and white nostalgia.