LITERARY AWARD JACQUES AUDIBERTI 2019
This literary prize, founded in 1989 by the city of Antibes to reward a work inspired by Mediterranean culture, is awarded each year by a jury where the mayor of Antibes sits alongside authors and journalists, chaired by the writer Didier Van Cauwelaert.
This year, an Egyptian writer is awarded for his entire body of work. Alaa El Aswany, whose latest novel was released in August 2019 by Actes Sud: “I Ran Towards the Nile.”
The author is very much contemporary with the debates on the veil, Islam, and Islamism. The mayor of Antibes, Jean Leonetti, described this book as a condemnation of extremism, both religious and political. It reveals a beautiful lesson of hope with the triumph of the good over the evil.
Didier Van Cauwelaert summarizes this book: Creating something new with heart, the memory of a people whose past is colonialism, corruption. Morality or religion? “Better a morality without religion than a religion without morality.” A return to the original sources of Islam.
The president of the jury concluded his presentation by speaking about the author being banned in his country, Egypt. Alaa El Aswany concluded the presentation by mentioning the two woes of Egypt: Islamism and military dictatorship.
He then talks about his next book: The Dictatorship Syndrome,
where he explains the mechanisms of conditioning peoples. They are insidiously prepared to accept dictatorship under the pretense of being protected. He talks about the dictatorships of the 20th century and demonstrates how men like Hitler were able to seduce their people.
This writer is timely as he denounces both Islamism and its contrary reaction, Islamophobia. The two Manichean poles used, even in the West, by populist parties by exacerbating fears and inward-looking attitudes. “I Ran Towards the Nile” is ultimately a message delivered to Egyptians and Westerners to open up to one another, and to conclude with the words of Pope John Paul II: “do not be afraid.”
This literary prize is symbolic with a call for tolerance against fanaticism
and a happy coincidence with the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Thirty years is also the age of this literary prize.
