This post was originally published on Audible.com.
I was hooked on the concept of The Republic of Memory from the jump: rebellion breaks out on a generation ship halfway into its 400-year journey in a story inspired by the Arab Spring. And that was before I even knew that the author invented a language for the book. I had the chance to ask Mahmud El Sayed what Arabfuturism means to him and how he wove language into his process. (Pronunciation was important—but not quite in the way I expected!)
Sam Danis: This story is inspired by the events of the Arab Spring. Tell me more about how you came up with this concept, and what ties you wanted to draw to history.
Mahmud El Sayed: Tahrir Square circa 2011 was kind of like Woodstock for Egyptians of my generation. Unfortunately, I was not there to witness it for myself, so The Republic of Memory is kind of my way of experiencing a shadow of a shadow of it. The Arab Spring is a strange phenomenon, viewed vastly differently in the Middle East than it is in the West, and I was interested in exploring those differences in a science fiction setting.
Language is an important element in this story. You play a lot with the evolution of various languages aboard this generation ship, and you actually developed a dialect for this story—Nupol. Where did this creative element come from, and how did you weave it into your writing process?
Like most writers, I'm a huge language nerd and particularly for conlangs (constructed languages) like Nadsat (A Clockwork Orange) or Belta (The Expanse). I'm interested in the idea of soft linguistic relativity, and so I thought it was important to give the rebels a language of their own and also have them not just speak that language, but think in it, too. If I've done things right, readers and listeners will slowly learn Nupol and, in doing so, maybe even become rebels themselves.
Especially considering the extra language element, what was most important to you when considering the narration?
It wasn't the pronunciation of Nupol that was a concern for me, and I was more than happy for the excellent voice-over artists to have the creative freedom to make this their own, which they did wonderfully. Instead, I was more concerned that the Arabic—or should that be Arabek—words be pronounced correctly. There are a few vowel sounds in Arabic that just don't exist in English and so I wanted to make sure that the Arabic words sounded right. I have too many Arab friends and cousins who would let me know about it if they weren't!
The Republic of Memory is a work of Arabfuturism. What does that term mean to you? Where else would you recommend listeners look for more in this genre?
I try to define Arabfuturism as broadly as possible. It is a cultural aesthetic that exists at the intersection of Middle Eastern culture, technology, and science fiction. For me, it's about taking and claiming ground for our stories to exist in the future, and so it is a creative act of both resistance and hope. If you want to read more Arabfuturism, I would recommend Basma Abdel Aziz's kafkaesque The Queue and Comma Press's Futures Past series.
