UAE | General
A tale of two books: Unsung and unread
He's written two books in two years, but the Emirati computer programmer by day and wordsmith by night remains uncelebrated in his country
- By Mazhar Farooqui, Deputy editor, XPRESS
- Published: 00:00 February 9, 2012
- Image Credit: © XPRESS / Oliver Clarke
- It’s tough enough to write a novel in two years, but Abdulla Kazim has done one better, that too with a regular job
Dubai: Ask any professional novelist and he will tell you writing two novels and publishing them a year apart is no mean task. Unless you're an insomniac workaholic like Stephen King perhaps.
An Emirati with a regular day job, however, did just that.
Abdulla Kazim, 30, made his literary debut with Secret Feelings in 2011 and followed it up with a second English language novel, Memories of the East, in January 2012.
Despite the incredible feat Kazim remains unsung and unread in his own country. No bookstore in the UAE stocks his novels and he had to get his works published pretty much on his own.
"Finding a publisher was almost as tough as writing outside my native language, so I got them self-published. It was expensive, but I had little choice," says the self-effacing author, who went to an Arabic school where the teaching of English as a subject was, at best, rudimentary.
"In my house too, no one spoke a word of English. It was an alien language until I joined Dubai Men's College. I was fascinated by English, but quickly realised that I won't get anywhere without learning it first. So I developed a habit of reading English books. Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, newspapers... I used to read anything I could get my hands on. It was tough, but I didn't give up."
Kazim started with short stories before foraying into the big league — fiction novels. "I wanted to talk through my books," says Kazim, who loves playing the guitar and writing, uncharacteristic for someone who works as a computer programmer cum analyst at Dubai Aluminium Company.
COMMON THREAD
Death runs across as a common thread with the young protagonists of both Secret Feelings and Memories of the East obsessed with the thought of killing themselves on their birthdays.
Noordin Ahmad, 25, (Secret Feelings) wants to die as he is fed up with his dreary existence and Gerald Arsov, 29, (Memories of the East) wants to end his life because horrific memories of his own father killing his mother several years back and holding aloft her heart as a trophy, still haunts him.
The similarities go beyond the morbid subject of death. Even the bitter disappointment Noordin Ahmad and Gerald Arsov face in their quest for a woman's love are alike. But Kazim dismisses the insinuation that he's fascinated with death and unsolicited love.
"They are just works of fiction. There's nothing more to them. I am a happily married man."
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