The sea represents the homeland to the UAE society
Our family’s work was based on the sea and it continued as well; they had a whole fleet of wooden ships.
Khorfakkan film by the Governor of Sharjah, His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan Al Qasimi, about the city of Khorfakkan overlooking the sea and the occupation of Portugal
Dr. Wafaa Ahmed Al-Antali Emirati writer, journalist, and novelist, Founder, and CEO of the “Tarabut” platform, and a member of the Emirates Writers Union
She was a lecturer for 4 years at the Higher Colleges of Technology in Abu Dhabi and a teaching assistant at the College of Islamic and Arabic Studies
Dr. Wafaa Ahmed Al-Antali is the supervisor of the Inspirational Arab Woman Award and has many books, and she is the fifty most powerful women who have visited Moscow
Dr.Wafaa in exclusive interview to ” eBlueeconomy “confirms her relation to the sea since childhood and how it remains in her memory and in her creative writings, the sea is present between the words
What did your love for the sea look like? and How did that affect your writing?
Our relation to the sea is a relationship rooted as a bridge between the land and the sea. Before the Union, the UAE society was either the sea or the desert community. Because my tribe is from the sea community, the sea has been a deep-rooted element in my life since childhood. How not and our family’s homes were by the sea and the wave was the melody that we listened to in the morning and evening. In addition, our family’s work was based on the sea and it continued as well; they had a whole fleet of wooden ships.
The sea represents the homeland to the UAE society, but what the sea represents to me are those small steps that try to follow and catch my father while he was passing the wooden ships on the port one by one. Moreover, the sea was our asylum in summer and winter; my aunt’s daughters and I were resorting to it while we were in our grandmother’s house. The sea in my city is not too far away; my room looks over the sea. What the sea represents most to me are childhood and youth. Wherever I turn my face in my city, It is in front of me..
The sea is a source of inspiration and creation for writers in the world such as Ernest Hemingway and his masterpiece “The Old Man and the Sea” Have you ever thought that the sea could be your inspiration in your writing?
I like Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Old Man and the Sea , and Paulo Coelho‘s writing about the sea when he says in his novel Alchemist that ” the sea has lived on in this shell, because that’s its Personal Legend “, as well as His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan Al-Qasimi’s writing in his historical novels about the sea.
So the sea is always present in my writing, perhaps because it was engraved in my memory, and settled in my subconscious. My novels cannot be without sea, mountains, or life. The blue water is always between the lines of my novels and its smell occupies a lot of my writings and the sound of waves is what moves the five senses of my readers.
Titanic conquered the world as a movie, you see why marine drama is absent from the writings of writers and creators, despite our creative heritage in this field?
I don’t think the sea is absent from drama. There are many literary works that were about the sea; to be mentioned Khorfakkan film by the Governor of Sharjah, His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan Al Qasimi, which is about the city of Khorfakkan overlooking the sea and the occupation of Portugal, and other literary books.
How do we work to promote or pay attention to this type of creativity, whether at the level of literary writing, drama, television, or cinema?
The sea can hold our works; it is a quiet and windy tune so that the writer can cross the sea to creative horizons in the novel, deep philosophical dimensions or even deceptively simple. The sea can contain historical, romantic, realistic and other literary curricula and schools.
But I don’t know the attitude of Arab writers about the sea these days because the attitudes and perspectives have changed into passing messages about money, power, and welfare; I think that’s why the civil society and writers are away from tackling the sea…
Why did we not find Hanna Mina, the Arab marine writer, again in modern Arabic literature?
I don’t have statistics on works about the sea but I don’t think the sea is aggrieved. I mention many Gulf works that have dealt with the sea as well as Arab ones…
If you stood in front of the sea what would you say to him?
If I talked to the sea, I would tell him that the child who was playing on your beach has grown up, but you’re still the same whenever I see you I get back to my childhood.
