Thoughts on the National Writers' Day

“There is nothing more important in writing than honesty,” I told my writer friend when he reminded me of our National Writers’ Day.

ލިޔުންތެރިންނަކީ ގައުމަށް ކުރިއެރުން ހޯދައިދޭން މަތިވެރި ޖިހާދެއް ކުރަންޖެހޭ ބައެއް: ރައީސް

He sent me the President’s message for the occasion: “Writers ought to strive in a noble jihad to achieve progress for the nation.”

I’m not a writer. But I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about writers and their work.

Did Fyodor Dostoevsky write for the glory of the Russian Empire?

Did Albert Camus launch a literary jihad for Algeria with The Stranger or The Plague?

Kafka’s most powerful works - those that he never even wanted published – only became part of Czech national heritage a 100 years after him.

Joyce didn’t write Ulysses to turn Dublin into a literary shrine.

When Naguib Mahfouz wrote Children of Gebelawi or Saadat Hasan Manto penned Thanda Gosht, they weren’t dreaming of greatness for Egypt or Pakistan. They weren't. In fact, they were both shunned and ostracized in their societies.

But they all had one thing in common: they were honest - brutally so. Honest to themselves, and to their craft.

Hussain Salahuddeen was one of the greatest Dhivehi writers. Keerithi Rasoolaage Siyarathu and Boduthakurufaanu Vaahaka became the pillars of Dhivehi nationism. But was he honest to his craft?

Hitler wrote Mein Kampf. His propaganda minister, Goebbels, wrote volumes too. Mao Zedong had The Little Red Book. Gaddafi had The Green Book.

They were writers. Possibly, they too believed they were working toward national greatness. But can anyone, in earnest, call their writing honest in the literary sense?

Maybe they were honest in their own way. Perhaps the isms they championed were, to them, moral imperatives. They likely believed those causes justified the suffering and death of millions.

So maybe there is a difference between writers and propagandists.

A writer’s highest calling is honesty. But for a Dhivehi writer, that is the very privilege most out of reach because it’s a burden not just you but your loved ones must carry too.

Without that brutal honesty good writing cant flourish because good literature is always about the human condition - something that is, at its core, absurd, as in Camus ABSURD and strangely Kafkaesque.