ward & rammad (Roses and ashes)

Since that meeting, bonds of friendship have been forged between us and I have been convinced that Shukri’s experience in life and writing deserves to be known and read because it is erased from unfamiliar versions of the writings and experiences of our other colleagues. Most importantly, the dialogue extended between me and Shukri during the meetings and then through the messages because I found in him a close interlocutor to the soul, characterized by spontaneity and frankness. It seemed to me, perhaps I was wrong, that Shukri needed someone to remind him of the need to keep writing to resist the banality of the environment in which he lived. But as I reread the letters now, I found that my urgency was also a kind of reminder to myself that writing is more important than the political and cultural activities I was drawn to… I think that writing letters responds to very intimate moments in which we feel the desire to reveal, to reveal and to think out loud. Unfortunately, our tradition of correspondence between creative friends is few, if not non-existent. Then, I found, along with my friend Shukri, that the publication of these letters, which spanned between 1975 and 1994, may illuminate some of the details captured by the letters while they were in labor, and may draw other features that the creative text cannot accommodate.