Writers, Scholars at SIBF: Despite Global Shifts, Literature Stays True to its Cultural Foundations

Novolists and researchers have stressed that despite the shifts brought by the digital age and globalisation, literature remains anchored in cultural origins and continues to express the distinctiveness and shared memory of societies. This came during a session titled “Literature and social identity" at the ongoing 44th Sharjah International Book Fair.

The session hosted Lebanese academic Dr. Mamoun Tarbieh, Pakistani writer Mira Sethi, Nepali novelist Samrat Upadhyay, and Syrian author Sumar Shehadeh. The discussion centred on the link between creativity and identity, and on how literature helps preserve collective memory and shape contemporary human understanding.

Tarbieh explained that literature serves as an intellectual and social front, expressing people's identity through their customs, traditions, rituals, and expressive forms that resonate deeply and endure in memory. He emphasised that genuine literature does more than offer aesthetic value; it shapes how societies understand themselves, even as some theories claim that social identity is dissolving in the face of digital and global change.

Cultural identity remains a part of creative writing, but for Mira Sethi, the impulse to write comes from personal and emotional experience. She argued that honest writing should pose questions and engage openly with social issues, free from imposed limits. In her view, true writers rely on their own lived realities and unfiltered emotions, even when their work challenges prevailing political or social norms.

For Samrat Upadhyay, literature that centres on human experience naturally crosses geographic and political lines. While he focuses on characters and their emotions, he acknowledged that politics inevitably enters the narrative because writers reflect the environments they come from. He believes the power of literature lies in its openness to varied human experiences, which gives it universal relevance. Although rooted in Nepal, his work speaks to concerns shared across societies.