5 Major Influences From Annemarie Jacir

Salt of the SeaWhen I Saw YouThe Match FactoryThe Match Factory. Here Jacir gives us her five major influences. 1. Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. I was in high school when I first read this book. I will never forget the enormous effect it had on me. I had never read a novel that touched me so deeply, never read a novel that I was able to relate to so deeply. A story dealing with African-Americans early in the 1950s, with identity, and most of all invisibility on personal, political and social levels.  I was a sixteen year old Palestinian girl who just moved to Texas from Saudi Arabia, and suddenly my entire world changed. Something clicked in my head. It changed my life. 2. As cliché as it may sound to some, the human spirit. I am blown away again and again in my life by the strength of people. Friends, family, strangers, people who live in the harshest conditions or who undergo immense pain and continue to struggle, continue to have hope and to stand tall. I take great inspiration from it; it grounds me and it also keeps things in check for me. Although lately I work mostly in fiction, I try as much as possible to keep my work rooted in real people and real lives, and to keep learning lessons. 3. Poetry. Ever since I can remember poetry has been part of my life. When I was a child, I had this book, Poetry for Children. I remember reading and re-reading it every single night. I must have been around nine or ten. As an adult, poetry still influences me tremendously. The words of Mahmoud Darwish, Adonis, Samih al-Qasim, Fadwa Touqan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Pablo Neruda, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney...

4. Food. I love a good meal made with love. Fine, fine food. I have so much respect for chefs, for people who really know how to cook. That’s a real artist. I can’t cook well to save my life. When I have a good meal, I am happy. And I am fueled up to create, to write a new script. 5. A good film. People always ask for that one film, but there is not one film. There are many. For me, some of those are, The Battle of Algiers, Faces, Trouble in Paradise, Beau Travail, Before the Rain, In the Mood for Love. I discovered cinema late in life, because in Saudi Arabia, where I grew up, we did not have cinemas. Of course there was the random film we were able to see, but not the kind of films that later would deeply affect me the way these have.  

[Photo: Annemarie Jacir]