The Barbara Cartland of Cairo…Sort of: Sanna Negus’s Writing Life interview

[Matt Rees]

Cairo is a place we all know to some degree, even if only the image of the pyramids and the Sphinx. A short visit there is enough to make you wonder about how much of this teeming metropolis you really don’t know. No writer gets so deep as Sanna Negus under the skin of this ancient city, which remains key to the future of the benighted Middle East. Sanna’s the Middle East correspondent for Finnish radio and television. Her new book “Hold onto Your Veil, Fatima! And Other Snapshots of Life in Contemporary Egypt” is a stunning portrayal of Egypt that’s both homage and expose. Pulitzer winner Lawrence Wright calls her “one of the most informed and well-connected reporters in the region.” She’s also one of the best writers. Here she talks about the decade she spent in Cairo (before moving to Jerusalem) and how she wrote her book.

How long did it take you to get published?

The initial Finnish version (2005) came out quite smoothly. I first got a writing grant from the biggest publishing house in Finland, WSOY, which allowed me to work on three sample chapters. Less than a year later we signed a contract. The English version took longer to publish, mainly because I got distracted by other things. One UK publishing house was at first interested, but then withdrew and I guess it depressed me and I buried the project for a while. After some friends kicked my behind and told me to get my act together, I took a look at my bookshelf’s Middle Eastern books. So I wrote to Garnet on Monday, they answered on Tuesday and on Friday I got a contract!

Would you recommend any books on writing?

This being my first book, I figured I should probably look into some writing guides. So I read a couple of books in Finnish. While these books gave a boost to my confidence, they still didn’t solve the problem of the blank page. When I was taking my first steps as a journalist (and I never studied journalism or literature), I found Jon Franklin’s Writing For Story useful. But at the end of the day, it’s better to read what other people have written in your genre.

Read the rest of this post on my blog <a href="http://www.themanoftwistsandturns.com/2010/07/15/the-barbara-cartland-of-cairo%E2%80%A6sort-of-sanna-negus%E2%80%99s-writing-life-interview/">The Man of Twists and Turns.</a>