(9 Jan) – “I’ll improve my Arabic and in a year I’ll be back in Italy”. So said, a few years ago, Carmine Cartolano after graduating in Modern Languages and Literatures from the University of Naples “L’Orientale”, whe he decided to leave his town in the province of Salerno and move to Cairo. “I had studied Arabic and Persian and, with just a ‘piece of paper’ on the wall and an Arab world available, I chose Egypt,” says today Cartolano, photographer, writer and translator who still lives in Cairo and 13 years have passed since his move. Cartolano teaches Italian in the Egyptian capital city, even if his biggest passion still remains writing. The activities of Cartolano, however, are various and in recent years he has also directed theatrical plays and discovered the world of photography. All his works have also been collected into an exhibition entitled ‘Se’ (‘If), hosted on June 2011 by the Gallery of Contemporary Art Mashrabia. “I live in Cairo since 1999 and everything happened almost by accident, perhaps by exclusion,” says Cartolano, aka Qarm Qart. “I was driven only by my interest in the Arabic. Once I made the first choice, every decision led to another one and so on”. Of course there have been some difficulties: “The Arabic was, is and always will be a great challenge, even though after 13 years things are getting much better. Besides the language, I haven’t had too much difficulty and this is the reason why I stopped here. From the beginning I felt at home: North Africa is not far from Southern Europe and my town, Buonabitacolo, is not so far from Cairo”. His love for western and middle-eastern literature inspired him to star his work as a translator: “After ‘Breakfast in Cairo’ (published by Giunti), my latest work is a translation of a novel by a Lebanese writer, that will be released in the next months in Italy. My latest production, as author, it’s ‘Masriyyano’, a collection of short stories I’ve written in Egyptian dialect”. In recent years, the Cartolano has also been a keen observer of the Arab Spring: “I was here during the revolution. I did not participate actively, a very few times I went down to Tahrir Square. However, I have personally experienced those moments through the experiences of some women who have made the revolution working with Valeria Brigida for her book ‘Horreyya. La rivoluzione delle donne egiziane. Se non ora quando?’ (Editori Riuniti International)”. “I’ve followed and still follow the story of a country that is changing,” he admits. “Apparently everything looks the same as before, but you can feel the wind of change, as if everyday something could happen”. As an emigrant, Cartolano reacounts the way he lives the “new immigration”: “An Italian living abroad is just like an Egyptian in Italy or a Pakistani in Dubai: a man far from the smells and flavors of his land and from his friends and family. He lives like a man enriched by the warmth of different families and by new experiences he would have never faced. The world today is a giant boule de neige. Even if you do not shake it, snowflakes continue to move, then settle and move on again”. (Peg)
