Breaking through shutters

In an understood.. Strange world.. Trying to find answers.. analysis.. some people did think.. Meditate upon the state of our existence.. Bringing us through their ideas a new perspective to look upon this world..

Writer Enas Al-okleh wrote a novel titled “Blue Shutters”, which stirred the interest of SyriaTimes to want to know more about it, especially with its interesting title and the fact that it got the second place at Hanna Minna Prize for Syrian Novel.

That’s why we asked the writer Enas Al-Okleh all about the novel and more and this is how it went..

First we asked what inspired her to write the novel “Blue Shutters”?

Al-Okleh told us: “I think that every character finds its way to their author, when it comes to “Blue Shutters”, and when I think back to the time I wrote it, I find it closely related to the circumstance, what I mean for example, that the main character was just out of prison, in the parallel world when I wrote the novel I was in quarantine period in March, 2020, at that time I felt as if the world turned into a group of small cells, where ever man’s house became his home and his prison at the same time, I feel as if the novel unconsciously came out of this idea (the prison related idea) which was evident in the first scene that appeared to me at some point, and the story spilled after it automatically”.

Then I asked her what questions or ideas does the novel revolve around?

“When it comes to the questions the novel revolves around, I would say it’s the same questions the main character is asking, and at the same time they are the questions we all ask ourselves when something happens to us or when we face some kind of incident, we start asking, why did it happen and was it possible for us to do something to change it? We start looking for answers outside of ourselves, in our surroundings and around us. Then, when we fail, and we will often fail, we will search in the right place, within ourselves, to only find that the search here is more difficult and that the path is more complicated, but in time it will lead to greater emancipation. Herein lies the significance of the title, as the blue shutters are shutters of a latent world that we do not know anything about. Behind them lie lives, ideas, assets, people, and relationships of great complexity. From an individual perspective, there is a similar world within us that hides behind similar shutters, that we must open to realize secrets hidden even from ourselves”.

Does the novel have a goal or an idea that you want to communicate.. Or is it that the novel tells a story for the sake of the art of the novel itself?

Al-Okleh answered: “I don’t believe in the art for the sake of art principle, because I do believe that life itself is the source of art with all its words, complication, beauty and even ugliness, that which brings the artist to capture a photo of a scene, drawing of a picture, writing of a story or even the creation of a certain character, it’s all a reflection and echo of what the artist’s insight sees and the feelings and ideas he carries within him about the universe, life and the human, that’s why I do believe that even if the artist claimed having no purpose or a motive behind his writing, I still think that the purpose is latent and existent even if he didn’t vocalize it or even felt it”.

I noticed that the novel, through an excerpt from it, discusses the issue of people’s submission to injustice without searching for its nature and origin.. Does this indicate that you tend to interpret life in a way that is close to absurdity and nihilism? Or do you have another philosophy for it?!

“I do believe that life is a journey and not a goal, even if searching the meaning behind every little incident or scene that passes by a person is a hidden motive for many people, the attempt to understand and find meaning in itself is a personal, subjective, very private process that cannot be relied upon, even the place of these meanings in the history of mankind, because it is something that the mind cannot realize its importance and its final goal, and all the attempts of historians, writers, thinkers and philosophers to unlock this enigma is but a private, personal and subjective attempts to the same degree, and therefore man has no choice but to live his own story, as the story is the goal of humanity and telling this story is The inherited legacy of the holistic human mind that can be seen as a huge “organism still trying to adapt to this earth and evolve with it. Therefore, I do not believe in the claim of a philosophy or an intellectual trend capable of providing a single and correct understanding of life and the universe. Rather, each of them possesses a part of the answer, and the person remains a researcher throughout his life”.

Finally, SyriaTimes asked Author Enas Al-Okleh, what her favorite novel or book in general is?

“I do not have a specific book about which it can be said that it is my favorite book, but there are a group of books that opened my insight to new worlds and spaces for thought, imagination and analysis. I mention among them” Orientalism” by Edward Said and “You Will Not Speak My Language” by Abdel Fattah Kleito and the writings of TaherLabib. In literature, the works of Gabriel GarcíaMárquez, Abdel Rahman Munif and Amin Maalouf”.

Indeed there are shutters everywhere, but their existence means they are meant to be open, broken and discovered.. Do you think we can make it on the other side of shutters.. The side of absolute freedom.. The side of unlocking the game of life?!

Leen Al Salman