Haitham Alsarraf: An Author Interview

Haitham is a Kuwaiti author of two books, Inshallah, Habibi and Invasion Occupation Awakening. He holds an M.A. degree in English literature and teaches English at Kuwait University. Haitham was the founding editor of the Kuwait University literary magazine, Perceptions and the online literary magazine, Kaleidoscope. His work has been internationally published in Mashallah News, Jewish Literary Journal, Blue Minaret, Pif Magazine, The Ofi Press, Sukoon, Egg Barrel, and forthcoming in Cecile’s Writers’. When Haitham is not teaching or writing, he immerses himself in travel, human oddities and the paranormal. His next work revolves around just that. Inshallah Habibi is available on Amazon.

Q1. What is your educational/professional background and how did you enter the literary world? 

I have Bachelor and Master’s degrees in English Literature. I have been teaching English at Kuwait University since 1997. Creative writing and drama classes in high school opened and enthralled me into the world of art, which led me to studying English literature. As a Kuwaiti civilian, I was caught up in the first Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991, when Saddam Hussein invaded and occupied Kuwait. Instead of allowing war to merely traumatize me, I used those experiences to further my expressional art forms. The fluid, captivating way words could be constructed – and deconstructed – pushed me to weld personal, esoteric experiences with such a medium as the written and spoken word.

Through subsequent journal writing, blogging, and after editing two literary magazines, I experimented with technique, fusing my specialization in Romantic Poetry with postmodern prose. Only since 2014 have I unleashed my writings to the world to be published. Invasion Occupation Awakening is my 2014 first indie debut book. It is a fictional collection of short stories from the 1990-1991 Iraqi Invasion, occupation, and subsequent liberation of Kuwait. Inshallah, Habibi is my first blown novel, published in August 2015. I always continue to recreate myself, experimenting and hopefully greatly widening my rhetorical skills. 

Q2. Your novel Inshallah, Habibi describes in detail the sexcapades of Kuwaiti youth. Did you receive any pushback for writing about such a controversial topic? If so, how have you coped? If not, why do you think that is? 

Inshallah, Habibi has been my personal child. When I mostly blogged about social issues in Kuwait in the 2000’s, I received much heat because of the controversial but very truthful subject matters I wrote about. Sex was one of them. It provoked many readers in the country and region. Truth – sex — often does. But, after a few years, I gained many followers who related to the subjects. I took few of the blog excerpts and weaved them into the story in the first person, told by a young Kuwaiti man who fights off the hypocrisies, taboos, and corruption that are normally seen in developing Persian Gulf Arab countries. I took it further by paralleling the rise of materialism to the decay of spiritualism, by way of sexual exploration in a very materially corrosive, secretive society. The book is intended to be an acerbic, blatant, misogynistic but spiritual look at a man who defends male integrity and individuality in the wake of capitalism, feminism, gluttony, and dying Islamism. The intention was for it to be a male read, defending the dwindling sense of machismo in light of sadism and masochism (sadomasochism) that is usually seen in relationships in the Western world yet rarely publicized in the Middle East.

So far, the book seems to have been received favorably in the West and in Kuwait. I assume the human element of the book is the reason. It confronts yet invites humanity. What is ironic is, although the storyline objectifies and subjugates women, most of the reader base is female. I hold their perceptions at a very high regard.   

Q3. What was your inspiration for Inshallah, Habibi? Why this topic, why now? 

“Inshallah, habibi,” which is used ambiguously and ambivalently, and undoubtedly, haphazardly, means “God-willing, my love” in Arabic. They are two words that are popularly used. The term echoes a lot of what is addressed and practiced in the Middle East. Seeking Allah’s (God’s) will or grace is not the normal intent. My darling, or my love, added to inshallah, juxtaposes and only saturates what the true term should be used as. Much like a catch-22.

The story is set during 2001-2008 just when world affairs like more war and imperialism were advancing greatly. Its inspiration was about relating the rise and infringement of Western ideologies in Kuwait, which started diluting and sexualizing Arab and Muslim practices, attempting to break open egalitarian customs, and allowing the Western sense of individuality to surface. Hopefully, readers see the symbologies throughout. The story is supposed to be a tug of war of conscience. Ugliness and the beauty of humanity permeate; hence, “inshallah” and “habibi” pervading. 

Q4. Who have been some of your literary favorites growing up? How have they shaped your thinking and writing? Who is the one writer currently you really aspire to be like?

I would have to say that Joseph Conrad and Albert Camus have influenced me growing up. Their use of psychology and philosophy, especially the metaphysical and transcendental meshed with experimental writing technique, have been instrumental in pushing my critical and literary skills. There is not one that I aim to emanate, but when I was writing Inshallah, Habibi, Charles Bukowski and Chuck Palahniuk definitely affected my stylistics. 

Q5. What are your plans for the future?  

I am writing my third book. I hope to complete it by the end of this summer. It will be based in the United States, not in the Middle East like the first two books. It will be about the paranormal. Spiritual values and welfare are core components in the story.

Excerpt:

“Inshallah, habibi.”

This is the reply I get in Arabic from my floor manager. I request a three-day vacation and all I get back is inshallah, habibi. Not just any inshallah, either. It is the third and most ridiculous one. One being the true religious term, God-willing, which is said with the most seriousness. The second means a careless and ambiguous maybe. This third one, though, is the most potent.

It is the least sincere, given without direct eye contact, combed onto a nonchalant smirk and hand-gestured with dramatic, semi-pleading palms. It means there is no way in hell you will get what you request. It is just wishful thinking. Take your pathetic pleading somewhere else. Leave my sight.

It is used to courteously dilute any fore tension. Sugarcoated yet diplomatic; all used by heisting Allah’s name to protect any violent reprisals. And, it is used as an intended paradox, kneaded with habibi, my love, and divided by a comma to project diplomacy. Duplicity. Rubbing it intensely in is the point. It is much like the social norm the country weaves itself in on a constant basis.