Some stories we do not imagine that the end scenes will comprehend, we cling to them until they are part of our identity, and they only leave with parts of our minds.. One of those stories was the great novelist: Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq, who passed away on the third of this April, leaving millions of his readers and followers in shock and devastation. An atmosphere of deep sadness prevailed on social networking sites with the passing of Tawfiq, and an unprecedented celebration prompted media figures to show their joy at his being at the forefront of the scene, and young people challenging artists and politicians to have such a collective state of lamentation upon their death. Who is Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq? Is it worth all this fuss and sadness? Why all this rush to mourn him and show this amount of lamentation mixed with sorrow and real pain from those broad segments of different orientations, which extend over two entire generations and perhaps more? Do his writings and literature represent this counterweight to the reaction to his death? Is his pen so deep that it parallels the depth of the situation accompanying death?
Definition:
Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq – or The Godfather, as he is called – was born on June 10, 1962 in the city of Tanta. He graduated from Tanta College of Medicine in 1985, obtained his doctorate in 1997, and in 1992 he joined the Modern Arab Foundation and began writing his first series – Metaphysics – in January of the following year. The “Horror” series was a great success despite the lack of spread of this type of literature in the Arab world, and he began writing other series for the same institution, such as the Safari series, the Fantasy series, and a series of international pocket novels, in addition to some special issues and some novels such as Utopia and Singa for other publishing houses. Tawfiq is also famous for writing periodic political and social articles in many Arab newspapers and magazines. He also loves translation, and one of his most famous works is the international novel “Fight Club,” which he translated as “Fight Club” by Merritt Publishing House, and it was republished by Laila House a year later. Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq is considered the first youth writer in the Arab world, who loved many readers with his exciting novels, his distinctive and sarcastic style, his unique characters – such as Rifaat Ismail – and his intellectual closeness to the youth and his constant communication with them. His novels always deal with the Egyptian people and what may happen to the country in the future.
Title: Honesty:
Many who were astonished by his majestic eulogies have missed the fact that the most difficult thing is to remain honest in what you believe or say, and to be honest when you change your conviction or change your course, because artistic talent and literary ability can be possessed by many, and training and the accumulation of experiences can raise your skills in it, but honesty or belief in what you see, turn to, or retreat from, must come from within you only. Khaled Tawfiq was distinguished by his honesty in what he believed or proposed. He did not appear in any position to be grandiose, pretentious, or exaggerated. He was simple and humble, striving to get close to others and understand them. This despite the fact that he had enjoyed fame and knowledge among young people for long periods of time, but his humility, which always placed him in a position of care, not guardianship, left this great impact. The man was not arrogant, but rather mild-mannered and restrained even with those who differed in his opinion, so there is no doubt that he would strip the respect of everyone he dealt with. With him, both humanly and intellectually. The loss of Dr. Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq came as a shock, because people felt that they had lost part of the truth and honesty surrounding them in a time in which everything is fake and ugliness prevails, in which innocence is considered part of idiocy by many, and simplicity is weakness. The man was simple, and even in his writing he relied on simplicity, which made him the pioneer of a school that attracted many generations to his method, and opened great horizons for them in the world of reading and knowledge.
Ordinary man:
The man was not only close to the youth because he was humble, but he also lived a “normal” life and was connected to his place of origin, Tanta. He dressed and spoke a normal language, and no one felt that he was leading a different life from the lives of thousands or millions of young people who followed him. Even the way he dressed and met were normal, and then you felt close to him without affectation or artificiality, and you felt that he represented you and that he was not an exception in his lifestyle. The idea of “normality,” not based on pretense and pretense, such as photographing presidents with the poor while drinking tea, is a central idea, in my opinion, in people’s love for many creative people, and Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq in particular, and through following the newspapers and websites he wrote with and for; You will find that the testimonies talk about a talented man or a man who was very popular among young people, but he was dealing in a “normal” way. As for the virtue of “dispensation,” it is a great virtue, because it is what makes you “normal.” You are not afraid to lose something material in order to maintain the aura that surrounds you, or a position, prestige, or money that you obtained from your fame or work. Your basic principle is the absence of things and your dispensation with them, and your knowledge that you are the one who makes the money and fame, and they are not what they make of you, and then possession and loss are equal to you, as long as you do what you want and believe it sincerely, and this is the essence of what made young people and many people feel. My virtue is honesty and humility in a man.
Young people like it:
For these reasons, young people approached Tawfiq, and took him as a role model in the world of reading, considering him to be their spiritual father who opened the horizons of global reading for them, and connected them with characters who carry moral values that tend toward truth, justice, and goodness without artificiality or falsity. He simplified for them the difficult aspects of philosophy in world literature, approaching their personal lives, mixing with them personally and morally. He was a spiritual father and an older brother without guardianship for many of them. These are all matters that are not directly related to a brightly colored or loudly active political struggle that subsides after a short period, or literary abilities that are comparable to a poet or Russian literature or anything else, but rather to human abilities that carry a significant amount of psychological integrity, sincerity, honesty, lack of color and deception, and these are matters that are much more arduous and difficult than political struggle or claiming depth with affectation. That is why young people loved Khaled Tawfiq, believed him, and missed him, because he represented to them all those moral values that cannot be bought, and it is enough that the majority of them believe within themselves that he was the one who made them “read.”
Protest silence
Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq passed away at the age of fifty-five, which is less than the average age of deceased people in Egypt, and less than the average age of deceased writers. Indeed, he is the youngest writer who has recently departed from our world… However, his passing was a silent message of protest, as he always used to protest with silence.
