Ahwal Al-Ma'rifa - Special

The well-known Egyptian poet and translator Dr. Abdel Maqsoud Abdel Karim has finished translating the novel (Scoop) by the British writer Evelyn Waugh, and the novel will be published soon by a Saudi publishing house. Dr. Abdel Maqsoud Abdel Karim spoke to Ahwal Al-Ma'rifa about this novel, clarifying that the novel "Scoop" is a novel whose first edition was published in 1938 by the English writer Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966). It is a novel about sensational journalism and foreign correspondents. Its events take place in a country the author calls Ishmaelia, and its capital Jacksonburg. Its hero is William Boot, a young man who lives in extreme poverty, far from the injustice of London, and writes a column about rural nature in a newspaper owned by Lord Copper Daily, a national daily newspaper. He becomes a foreign correspondent by chance, when the editors think he is John Boot, a novelist and William's cousin. He was sent to Ishmaelia, a fictional state in East Africa, to write reports about the crisis there.

Dr. Abdel Maqsoud Abdel Karim adds: Lord Copper believes that it is a "very promising little war" and suggests "publishing it to the fullest." Despite his absolute incompetence, Boot accidentally gets the "scoop." When he returns, credit is given to the other Boot and William is left to return to his rural reports, which greatly relieves him. Dr. Abdel Karim provides another highlight about the novel, saying: In the foreword to the 1963 edition, the author says: This light tale was the fruit of a period of general anxiety and distress, but for its author it was a period of strange personal happiness. Its first editions carried the subtitle: "A Novel about Journalists." It now seems unnecessary. Foreign correspondents, at the time of writing this story, enjoyed unprecedented and undeserved fame. In the novel there are other secondary themes, which were a product of their time and have become obsolete, especially the "ideological war," although some similarities to it may still exist in the Far East.