Doha: The Cultural Salon at the 33rd edition of the Doha International Book Fair, which runs until May 18th, organized a seminar titled “The Dialogue of Literary Genres and Arts.” It featured the Tunisian writer and academic, Dr. Nizar Shaqroun, moderated by Dr. Abdulhak Belabed.
The seminar focused on the specificity of literary genres and their interaction with the arts, particularly the visual arts, and their engagement with the narrative genre. Postmodern novels were highlighted for their dialogue with the arts and their intersection with other literary genres.
At the beginning of the seminar, Dr. Nizar Shaqroun highlighted the uniqueness of Arab creativity, affirming that visual arts have not been integrated into our culture. This has resulted in our inability to engage in visual documentation, except for what has emerged through the creativity of orientalists.
Dr. Shaqroun stated that that’s why do not possess visual documents of our history except through architecture and geometric decorations. He pointed out that the lack of interest in imagery is still prevalent in the Arab societies, as evident in the low attendance rates at art exhibitions, which seem almost devoid of audiences.
He explained that many literary forms have expressed their need for imagery, whether real, such as expressive drawings by some novelists, or imagined. He added that the writer requires a visual memory to imagine and describe the scene, which is then translated by the reader. He stated that the novelist cannot construct a scene without visual knowledge of the place, adding the novelist builds a world and interrogates the material, rendering it visual with words.
Source: Qatar News Agency