Muscat, (ONA) - Writer Muhammad bin Saif Al-Rahbi presents his readership with the results of his experience with reading and writing, which exceeds forty years, through a new book issued by Luban for Publishing. It is his new project in his relationship with the world of writers, observing in “Shahd al-Kalima ... Jisr Al Heroof” features of his biography with the word, as he picked up its fruits after he walked for a long time on the bridge of its letters, as a reader and writer. He dedicated the work to Khaled, in the House of Juvenile Reform, which motivated him to start the book project after it was postponed for years, and also to friends of life and reading, Dr. Saeed bin Muhammad Al-Siyabi, and Abdullah bin Khamis Al-Abri, who took the books as their mutual friends that they talked about a lot.
This publication is a reference for those wishing to enter these two worlds. In the first chapter, “The Travel of Reading", he monitors his relationship with the book as a reader, which began since childhood, noting in his first article entitled “Between reading and writing ... I started tracing my path” his passion for these two worlds that took him so much that they became the transformer of life for him. Even with his professional work as a journalist, writing is an essential component of his relationship with the profession. He says, “I spent a long time (tracing) my path behind reading and writing, on my right is a book I read, and on my left another (draft) I write, but behind that right there is a thousand right. Thousands of books baffle me how I give it the time, and my steps are no longer competing with themselves as before, so the effect of the step is praiseworthy in its continuation, reprehensible for its interruption, and in every book I look forward to reaching the last page, until I have enough time to start on the first page of the next.”
Al-Rahbi provides what he sees as answers to questions that many of those who find tension in their relationship with the book as readers, including “Why do I read?” in addition to other questions related to that (what do we read, when, how and where) and why I do not understand?, in motivating the adherence to reading as a basic factor in everyone's daily agenda, and not to fill a void of time, pointing to many sayings in this aspect, and confirming that we are not similar in mood of reading and every reader has what he touches with in terms of topics, language and methods.
In the conclusion of this chapter, Al-Rahbi presents an article about his relationship with reading, and the books that he acquires from various cities, amounting to more than seven thousand books, and the passion for them continues to give him a sense of security. He also describes his presence among them, reviewing books that shaped him and influenced his experience. He writes, “In my small library at my home on Muscat, which grew up like its sister in my village, Sorour, I turned to my right and left, around me thousands of friends who are eager to sit with them. Will my life suffice to feel satisfied that I did not bring them from various cities to only put them on the shelves?!”
The author devotes the second chapter to writing, entitled “I chose my path,” and he began it with an article “Between writing and my soul,” describing the matter “as honey the ink poured from my fingers,” indicating that there are those who wish to become a writer more than a reader. Not every reader is a writer, but every writer should be a reader, with a high degree of passion for reading.
Al-Rahbi talks about what a person needs to become a writer, such as talent and its management, imagination, language, style and common mistakes, referring to the well-known (literary) forms and the identity of each one, with a focus on the art of the story and the novel, where the style of narration and movement of characters within the story, and other techniques necessary to write a work of fiction or narrative, stressing that the “pitfalls of beginnings” are obvious and necessary, but they can be overcome with sincerity to the project to which the person is biased, and he chooses writing as an expressive style that has its own aesthetic features.
In the conclusion of the chapter, the author monitors his relationship with writing, and his path with it, since he began writing flash prose in the early eighties, passing through his path with publishing in cultural attachments, newspapers and magazines, inside and outside the Sultanate, reviewing his experience in writing his seven novels, the first of which was published in 2001, and with his six story collections, in addition to a group devoted to the very short story, as well as articles, theater and travel literature, all of them amounted to about 33 publications over more than a quarter of a century, since his first collection of stories, his first publications, was published in 1994.
The author concludes his experience with the world of reading and writing by saying that there are “many moments of joy, which made my optimism in life, a life that starts from the page of a book I read, and another I start writing it”, and in both tracks, “I race against time to complete my painting so that it does not withdraw and keeps me confused in front of my weakness. I am afraid that death will come to me with the endings and it is still a book hanging in my library that I have put on my reading agenda, or there is a book project that has not been completed, which I see as another step better than the previous ones. At a stage in life, a person becomes like someone who wants to fulfill his dreams for fear of absence, just as he has lived a lot throughout life, the presence of friends and their absence, a physical or spiritual presence, just like absence completely.”
It is noteworthy that the writer Muhammad Al-Rahbi documented his journalistic experience, which he started in 1987, in a previous book entitled “Wax Does Not Melt Twice”, reviewing his experience in Oman newspaper, for about 21 years, in addition to other professional experiences.
(ONA)