Since I knew the writer Abdul Wahed Al Yahyai, ​​modesty and generosity are two main pillars of his personality, and perhaps his study of “Industrial Management” at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals played a role in his cognitive and cultural building, which is based on moral principles and values ​​from which he did not withdraw his hand, and as much as the guest of this space enjoys While calm, he disputes the idea and disputes his writing. To come out to people in the most beautiful linguistic and aesthetic form, believing that what we want to benefit people requires work, effort and effort.. Here is the text of the dialogue with the most prominent short story writers..

• What are the circumstances and features of the spark of awareness?

•• I was born in an environment that respects those who read, and gives books a great deal of appreciation and love, and when my father, may God have mercy on him, felt my love for reading, he made my daily expenses separate from the expenses of buying a book from time to time, and he said to me one evening while we were watching together an episode of the Science and Faith program by Dr. Mustafa Mahmoud – may God have mercy on him -: Look at him, how knowledge is almost leaving his eyes. Then he turned to me and said with the enthusiasm of loving fathers: Be a scholar like him, and I will like it very much. My older brother was an experienced reader, and I would often pick up the books he read after him, starting with graphic fantasy adventures (Superman and others like him), to more in-depth books at a later stage. I still exchange books with my brother Khaled, although the methods differed according to the techniques of exchanging books and knowledge via… Time.

In primary school, I was the best in the subject (Expression) and one of the very advanced in the subject (Arabic Calligraphy), and the teachers’ encouragement was great, as they would personally read to the students what I wrote in the subject of Expression, or point out the places where (Calligraphy) could be. The most beautiful. Stimulating competition between us – the students – through various means had a great impact on improving our young minds to always aspire to the most beautiful and complete. After that, in middle school and high school, there, through the subjects (Reading) and (Texts), I got to know the Saudi literary school with its great personalities: Abdullah Al-Faisal, Taher Zamakhshari. , Muhammad Ali Al-Senussi, Hassan Al-Qurashi, Hamed Damanhouri, Hamza Shehata, and Muhammad Awad – may God have mercy on them -, and I got to know (Al-Manhal) magazine by Abdul Quddus Al-Ansari, and (Al-Arab) magazine by Hamad Al-Jasser. I also followed the cultural supplements in local and Arab newspapers, and benefited greatly from the supplement. (Al-Marbad) in Al-Youm newspaper; Which was supervised by Hassan Al-Sabaa – may God have mercy on him. During the secondary and university stages, I was introduced to other Arab and Islamic schools in Egypt, Iraq, the Levant, and the Maghreb as well. My knowledge of the English language also allowed me to familiarize myself with the literature written in it or translated into it, and my life has continued to this day. Between reading, experimenting, and writing, while trying to search for the beautiful new in everything.

• To whom do you attribute the credit for your literary fame?

•• For everyone I read to; Whether from the ancients or the contemporary, in the sense that I attribute the primary credit to reading, reading has occupied most of my time from childhood until today. I read a lot and to many people, and as the amount of reading increased, without concern for quantity in the beginning, and with attention to the material read and quality as the years passed, my faith was in the Almighty’s saying: “ “And you have not been given of knowledge except a little.” This was increasing, and this was an incentive to ask for more, and after that comes dialogue with intellectuals about what we read and what we wrote and published. Dialogue with others, understanding them, and exchanging ideas with them creates a broader field for creativity, innovation, and cultural and societal change for the better, and there is also My own experiences with life, writing, and methods, all with the availability of publishing means, and being careful as much as possible to come up with something new and different contributed to increasing people’s knowledge of me, which I would like to end in appreciation before it turns into fame.

• Which door do you adore even today? What window light has bothered you since childhood?

•• Short stories and criticism are my favorite fields. Through short stories, I can convey my own vision of the ideas, people, and things around me, and through the criticism that I direct to my friends and that they direct to me in our direct mutual conversations or through writing in various publishing outlets, and I love writing objective literary articles. I like to follow philosophy, its problems and interpretations in its various fields. As for what has bothered me since childhood until today, it is the intentional vague ambiguity that some creative people resort to without artistic justification, without fear of censorship, and without any hindrance to linguistic and cultural ability.

• When did you write your first text? Do you remember it, or keep it?

•• Yes, I wrote it in middle school, and it was a short story, and perhaps it is present among the accumulated amount of papers I have saved from different times, and I remember that it was telling about a young man who wears his “ghutra” in a way that we called “parachute” at the time, and it is a topic that may be consumed today. ; That is, talking about the arrogance of some young people through what they wear through a short story, but beginnings also have their elegance, and “what matters is the perfection of the endings, not the imperfection of the beginnings,” as Sheikh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah – may God have mercy on him – said.

• Why was the story a choice? Is it related to the academic major?

•• The short story is a difficult art, or let’s say it is easy and impossible, and I chose it among other writing arts for its ability to convey my own ideas to readers in an attractive and interesting way. Deep ideas are often dry; Therefore, it needs a combination of beauty and simplicity to market and spread it among society. The academic specialization has no direct relation to my orientation towards the cultural and literary field, as I am a graduate of the College of Industrial Management from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals.

• Who are your founding fathers of your experience?

•• Very many, and in different fields; Locally, Arably, and internationally, I tried to read as many people as I could of those I believed in their excellence, their ability to change, and their prowess in doing so in different fields. Literary, economically, socially, and philosophically, but since we are talking about the short story, the novel, and its narrators; There is Jubayr Al-Millihan and his wonderful experience in the Arab Story Forum, and there is Jarallah Al-Hamid, Abdulaziz Mishri, Ibrahim Al-Nasser Al-Hamdan, Muhammad Alwan, and Ghazi Al-Gosaibi, and in the Arab world there is Youssef Idris, Zakaria Tamer, and certainly Abdul Rahman Munif, Naguib Mahfouz, and many others who were influenced by me cannot be overlooked. With them in the beginnings, and even after the beginnings as well, we are a link in a cultural chain that extends before and will continue after.

• How do you read the story’s experience in the Kingdom?

•• A strong, long-lasting, successful and promising experience, and I have no doubt about that.

• Who are the symbols of creativity today in the Kingdom?

•• Many, thank God, and the competition among them to highlight the most beautiful creativity is great and motivating. Among them: Jubair Al-Millihan, Muhammad Al-Muzaini, Khaled Al-Youssef, Abdel-Wahed Al-Ansari, Muhammad Alwan, Mahmoud Traori, Amal Al-Farane, Khalil Al-Fazia, Abdo Khal, Shorouk Al-Khaled, Salah Al-Qurashi, Muhammad Al-Matrafi, Wafa Al-Tayeb… and others are coming strong.

• When did you feel the fever of the story being invaded by intruders and nosy people?

•• When it was written by those who were not good at writing in a proper language, and when it was practiced by those who did not strive to search for a new or different idea, and when it became an oversight and an escape from another writing that the writer was good at but preferred the story; Because he thinks it is the easiest art, and it certainly is not when we take the story seriously and want creativity that is different and viable for generations to come.

•Are you not bothered by other arts sweeping into the writing arena?

•• No, because the written literary arts are diverse, but they do not conflict, and they intersect many times, and their diversity and intersection enriches the observing reader, and it also stimulates the creation of the new while preserving the established old. On the contrary, I am disturbed when we limit ourselves to one art and neglect other arts. Beauty and majesty seek everyone.

• Where do you stand today regarding a space that allows everyone to write? What is your reaction to what you observe from the writings of “Ay Kalam”?

•• I believe that survival is for what benefits people, including readers. As for the foam, it will disappear and the water will remain, and let whoever wants to write as he wants. If out of a thousand writings we do not like a beautiful story, or a wonderful poem, or rich criticism, then that is what is required, from the multitudes. From poets whom we do not know today and do not remember, Al-Mutanabbi appeared to us in the past, and Muhammad Ibrahim Yaqoub recently, and from a multitude of stories that we did not like, Abdul Rahman Munif and Abdo Khal appeared to us. Let us wait and hope for the best, for perhaps the distinguished individual will emerge from among the rude multitude.

• I sometimes feel from your biography that what concerns you is production, regardless of the type of product. How true is this feeling? What is true if not true?

•• Literary and cultural arts interact. You cannot write a social short story, for example, without being familiar with some religious and psychological information, and you cannot explain a philosophical principle without having the ability to present it in a form that the addressees understand. I write the short story, and along the way I stumble upon criticism. The writings of colleagues, then I write the article on philosophy, for example, so I need to give examples from outside philosophy so that the reader understands what I am saying. I may write the history of a certain stage, and I will not be fair if I do not read this stage through the eyes of its children before the eyes of those who monitor the experience after them, and measure that with ideas. Many, different productions are the cost of different reading and the search for a strong support for writing that is intended to be enjoyable and useful at the same time, and it will not be so without diverse reading that produces diverse writing.

• Do we identify with others culturally by virtue of the breadth of social communication?

•• Yes, we do that every day, and we disagree and agree every day with others, but let us strive to be honest with ourselves and with others, and confident in our ability to work and achieve in every field in this prosperous era in which we live in the Kingdom, including our ability to compete culturally. And literature with our own creativity represents our environment with all its diversity, heterogeneity and distinction as well.

• What do you fear for the culture?

•• Of its pretenders who do not work, and are upset when people work, as Taha Hussein – may God have mercy on him – expressed it, I fear for it from two opposing sides, in which stand the pessimists who underestimate the importance of every individual or institutional cultural achievement, and those who overestimate it. Weak works go so far as to spoil the reader’s taste and create a generation of writers who cannot advance. Because we have exaggerated in our praise, to the point of being vain, praising, and to the point of vanity, giving.

• What do you think of the saying “the era of cultural institutions has ended” and the era of the individual institution has begun?

•• I see it as a wrong statement. What we are witnessing in our country at least is the opposite, but the institution must not abolish the role of the individual. Because the sum of individuals is the institution, and the individual should not underestimate the value of the institution; Because teamwork is required and God is with the group. Creativity is usually individual, but the incubator and sponsor of creativity in most cases is the institution, and it is hoped that the roles between the individual and the institution do not conflict.

• Have our critics done justice to our creators?

•• They try to be fair as much as they can, meaning reviewing the works (texts) and presenting them to readers, highlighting the beauty in them, and promoting appropriate ones by writing about them in the available cultural means. But which critics have the opportunity to read every published work, and there are many of them? Even if there is time – and that is difficult – where is the appropriate means of publication if we go beyond the mostly impressionistic criticism we write through social media? The critic is like the creator. Indeed, it is noted that most of our critics work in creativity and translation, and that takes a lot of time, but let us work hard and try, for that is better than not working at all.

• How many times have you thought about stopping writing? And why?

•• I have not thought about that until now, but I will think about it when I reach a stage where I believe that there is no point in writing, that writing is a futile and useless act, and that our Noble Prophet – peace and blessings be upon him – may seek refuge from an invitation that is not answered.

• How do you deal with the mood of the intellectual in you if it becomes angry with you?

•• More reading and contemplation, and perhaps watching some films that friends recommend to watch. I often prefer works that have been adapted from novels I have read, and perhaps I will devote myself to listening to some singing that I love or talking with colleagues who are busy with public work so that I can understand them and learn about what they know that I do not know. .

• What new are you working on today?

•• I am working on translation, translating a number of short stories that I love, and a group of poems that I would like my reading friends to enjoy, and translation is another creativity, as our great professor Ihsan Abbas said, and I have accomplished a large part of that, and I hope it will reach the hands of an educated publisher soon. -God willing-.