MAI Al-NAKIB

Navigating identity, belonging, and creativity: an interview on writing, nationalism, and cultural complexity

Mai Al-Nakib is an academic and writer, born in Kuwait, who holds a PhD in English Literature from Brown University. She was Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Kuwait University for twenty years, specializing in cultural politics, gender, cosmopolitanism, and postcolonial issues. She writes full time.

Could you share a bit about your background and how it has shaped your perspective as a writer and academic?

I was born and raised, for the most part, in Kuwait, although I spent the first six years of my life abroad, primarily in St. Louis, Missouri, but a year before that in London, then Edinburgh. We returned to Kuwait in time for me to start first grade at the American School of Kuwait. My mother grew up in Pune, India; her father was a merchant. Her first languages were Hindi and English. She was around ten when her family returned to Kuwait and she focused on Arabic. My father grew up in Basra, Iraq; he was also around ten when his family returned to Kuwait. His mother was Lebanese; his grandmothers on both sides were Turkish. My father was about sixteen when he left Kuwait to study medicine in Vienna, Austria. Linguistically, he went from Arabic, to German (and Latin, which was required at the medical school in Vienna), then on to English. My mother was fluent in Hindi, English, and Arabic. My parents had an incredible facility with languages. 

All this to say, my background is mixed or cosmopolitan—in the best sense of that overused and, perhaps, somewhat tainted word. This has given me a measure of flexibility, mobility, and ungroundedness in outlook, which has no doubt affected my writing and academic interests. I’m inclined to look at things from multiple perspectives, never to accept foregone conclusions, to attempt, always, to find ways out of rigidity. I think when you begin life hearing and speaking multiple languages and encountering different places, it prevents a single worldview from solidifying. One of the gifts of my particular background has been that it made me able to tolerate and even value uncertainty early on. Openness to uncertainty, to not knowing the answers, has been central to my thinking and writing, which I approach as an exploration.

What inspired your interest in the themes of belonging and identity in your work? (What leads you to be wary of embracing an identity too tightly?)

The invasion of Kuwait in 1990 had much to do with my interest in national identity. In moments of national crisis, as we well know, people tend to cling to forms of shared identity—national, religious, cultural, tribal, or whatever. This makes sense in the face of attack, but it doesn’t take long for these initially expedient identifications to become exclusionary and, in the worst cases, to devolve into outright racism or xenophobia. This pattern is one we have seen repeated throughout history and across geographies. I wrote an essay early in my academic career on the exclusionary practices of citizenship in Kuwait titled, “Outside in the Nation Machine: The Case of Kuwait,” and then another on the post-invasion expulsion of the Palestinian community in Kuwait titled, “‘The People Are Missing’: Palestinians in Kuwait.” In the name of identity and belonging, extreme things have been done and continue to be done all over the world, including in Kuwait today, where a sudden wave of citizenship revocations is wreaking havoc on many families. For decades, the bidoon, or stateless, in Kuwait have been caught in a limbo of national belonging, on the one hand, and state rejection, on the other, with no humane solution in sight. For non-national residents in Kuwait, some of whom were born and raised here, whose parents have spent the majority of their working lives here, their sense of belonging is more attached to Kuwait than to their countries of origin or the passports they hold. But much as they would like to belong officially, Kuwait, with its impossibly restrictive citizenship laws, will never accept them. I have always found this to be a heart-breaking state of affairs, and a real loss to what otherwise could have been a rich and diverse national tapestry.

Because so much rides on the question of who has the right to belong and who does not or who has the right to be or to become a citizen and who does not, I hesitate to express any reservations regarding national identity and the sense of belonging it can impart. For the Palestinians, of course, asserting their national identity, their history in Palestine, their right to exist on and belong to their ancestral land, against the deaf ears of a wilfully ignorant settler colonial state—not to mention collaborating world leaders—has been and remains a matter of survival. Under the threat of ethnic cleansing and genocide, asserting identity is unequivocal. The same is true for the stateless, for refugees, for anyone without official documents. Not belonging to a national community or to be deprived of an official national identity is a frightening, distressing, and lonely condition, a condition I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. I recognize that my reluctance to rest in a sense of belonging comes from a place of privilege. For the moment, I don’t need to worry about official papers and the tremendous rights those papers afford me: the right to healthcare, work, travel, housing, various allowances and subsidies, a pension, and, generally speaking, the right to live with dignity. Nonetheless, in certain contexts, identity and the need or desire to belong can feel like a straightjacket. There is a growing tendency to claim and cling to identic markers, whether these are related to nationality, religion, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, vocation, or language. They enable connection to others and the formation of alliances and communities. Many wear these markers as a protective cloak against an often vicious and violent world. This is completely understandable, even admirable. In the process of writing, however, it is exactly this sense of groundedness that I seek to escape. Not belonging, scary as it can be, provides a sense of openness, autonomy, and adventure pivotal to writing both fiction and, in the best instances, academic research. This brings me back to that space of uncertainty I mentioned earlier, not easy to tolerate but potentially conducive to creative work.

For example, my novel, An Unlasting Home, explores the thorny issue of belonging from the perspectives of seven women whose lives have been affected by involuntary or voluntary migration, patriarchal forces beyond their control, economic precarity, bifurcated identifications, among other challenges. For a number of the characters, including the protagonist, Sara, unbelonging and dislocation end up providing unexpected opportunities that otherwise would have been impossible, which is not to say that it’s easy or even desired at first. It is precisely these ambivalent knots around the question of belonging that I’m interested in probing.

How does Kuwait’s historical experience impart its sense of national identity today? (How does the history of Kuwait as a cosmopolitan hub contrast with the rise of hyper-nationalism and xenophobia today? Why do you believe this shift is detrimental to Kuwaiti society?)

I would say that Kuwait’s official sense of national identity today has more to do with the effects of the invasion than it does with its pre-oil history. Geographically, Kuwait is positioned between desert and sea. Both physical features are characterized by change, unpredictability, and openness. To survive either demands cooperation between inhabitants, ingenuity, and resilience. Kuwait’s cosmopolitan history develops as a result of this dual geography. Desert dwellers and seafarers alike had to rely on their companions for survival, whether to defend against marauders, to overcome famine and disease, or to navigate rough waters. It didn’t matter where anyone came from originally—everyone came from elsewhere—but only that they were committed to mutual survival and prosperity. This pragmatic and tolerant sense of belonging stretched into the early 1950s, when who was considered Kuwaiti was understood in broader and more flexible terms than it would come to be in later years. Statehood transformed this organic sense of belonging and identity in Kuwait, as citizenship laws became increasingly restrictive.

The invasion consolidated what Kuwaiti political scientist Abdul-Reda Assiri has called Kuwait’s “siege mentality”—“a sense of encirclement…because the state’s immediate environment frequently has been politically inhospitable to its existence and survival” (Kuwait’s Foreign Policy 129). In the historical past, this sense of threat meant that Kuwait’s inhabitants—regardless of origin—stuck together and forged an independent path both socially and politically, protective of local interests but, at the same time, open to outside influences and connections. In later years and especially post-invasion, this balance tipped on the side of protectionism and, increasingly, hostility to those judged to be outside the ostensibly fixed parameters of national identity. Needless to say, such parameters are never, in fact, fixed, and are, as has become alarmingly clear over the last few months, a moving target. I can’t say for certain whether the majority of the Kuwaiti public agrees with this restrictive national narrative of identity and belonging or not. It sometimes feels like it, which is distressing. 

Etymologically, the Greek root of xenophobia means fear of the foreigner or stranger. In reality, xenophobia has more to do with greed. Xenophobic fear is not of the stranger per se, but that those classified as strangers or others—whether they are or not—are going to grab a piece of the pie that those who officially belong believe is exclusively theirs. Greed breeds hatred, lack of empathy, inhumanity, and a tendency toward closure: closed minds, closed perspectives, closed opportunities, closed futures. In the fanatical flurry of protecting the present against an onslaught of perceived threats from outsiders and others, what is ignored is how, in the process, the very elements needed to ensure the future security of the state, such as loyalty, trust, and a reassuring sense of situatedness, are being undermined. When you harm “the other” you have constructed as such, you harm yourself. When you dehumanize another, you are dehumanizing yourself. We are seeing this unfold in many parts of the world. It never ends well.

Does Kuwait’s experience with nationalism differ from other Arab Gulf countries? Are there common threads of nationalism across the region?

Every nation-state has its own particular national narrative, and while there are certain parallels—to do with shared geography, language, religion, customs—each retains its singular characteristics. Because each Arab Gulf country has its own history of independence and statehood, their versions of nationalism differ. I can’t speak to the specifics of each country’s national narrative, but I can say that Kuwait’s might be somewhat different from its neighbors’ because it has been a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament, its National Assembly. Until recently, this has given Kuwaiti citizens more political freedom. A sense of Kuwaiti nationalism has rarely foreclosed an open and public critique of the status quo; in fact, such open engagement—in newspapers, culture, politics, and society at large—with the protections provided by the Kuwaiti Constitution and the Constitutional Court, has always been part of Kuwait’s version of nationalism. There has always been a quality of fearless participation that has differentiated Kuwait (and its version of nationalism) from its regional neighbors. However, this singular quality is currently being eroded, and—who knows?—perhaps in a few years (if not overnight), this feature, which has made us exceptional when it comes to political freedom in the region, could disappear altogether. (It should be noted that on 10 May 2024, Kuwait’s elected National Assembly was dissolved by Amiri decree for up to four years, and Article 107 of the Constitution, which stipulates that snap elections must be held within two months of a parliamentary dissolution, was suspended. Article 4, which states that the choice of any newly appointed Crown Prince—the future Amir—must be ratified by parliament, was also suspended.)

In your view, how do Kuwaitis with mixed heritage or those raised abroad negotiate their identities within a nationalistic context? Do you think there is space for these “hyphenated identities” in Kuwait’s national narrative?

Life isn’t always easy for those who do not align with a rigid version of national identity for a number of reasons, some already discussed. It also depends on the mixture in question. There is a hierarchy of classification when it comes to race, nationalities, but also family name, religion, and so on, and these can affect to what extent those with mixed backgrounds or non-conventional upbringings fit in or don’t. For those raised abroad, or even those, like myself, who have attended foreign schools in Kuwait, those for whom English may become the dominant language, negotiating a national identity can be problematic. This is understandable in a country where Arabic is the official language, but the reality is, as ever, more nuanced and less homogenous than the official national narrative may acknowledge. 

There is no uniform way that individuals with complex backgrounds navigate their positions and identities within the national context, but it will usually involve flexibility and grit. Some may choose to assert their differences from the conventional (always constructed and fictionalized) “national identity,” while others may choose to fit in to the extent they can. Of course, try as they might, they may not be accepted by those proclaiming some definitive version of national identity. What is organic to Kuwait, as far as my sense of its cosmopolitan history suggests, is that it is a place where everyone, whatever their background, heritage, identity, or language, should be included if they want to be.

How do themes of gender intersect with nationalism and identity politics in Kuwait?

Gender intersects every facet of national, social, cultural, political, and economic life in Kuwait as it does everywhere else. Women in Kuwait enjoy a degree of freedom politically (they can vote and run for parliament, when it is not suspended); in the workplace; socially; and culturally. However, this does not mean that women enjoy full equality, neither before the law, nor in most other aspects of civic and quotidian life, though it goes beyond the scope of this discussion to sift through these inequities. Conventional gender roles remain entrenched in Kuwait and, for some, these can feel as rigid as the conservative, monolithic national narrative discussed above. Gender norms and expectations are heteronormative in Kuwait, and those who do not fall into these accepted categories or identities tend to suffer. Social, familial, and tribal pressures can be powerful, especially within more conservative families. Recently, thousands of foreign women, naturalized years ago, married to Kuwaiti men, have been stripped of their citizenships, a gender-based constriction of national identity. These official challenges to national identity strike fear in the hearts of the general populace. Ironically, an unacknowledged impetus behind such restrictions might be fear motored by a misdirected desire for “purity” and centrality, a need to exclude those whose ways of being supposedly differ from the dominant order. Excluding differences in the name of some fantasy of identic sameness results in a flattened, stagnant mode of existence, ultimately detrimental to national, social, and political development. In the name of preserving a purity that does not, in fact, exist, we ignore the exciting versions of being that already do.

What role does literature, art, and culture play in giving voice to these hybrid identities? How does your work seek to address or express these complexities?

Literature, art, and culture can express absolutely anything and everything, including the complexity of hybrid identities. The special function of literature is to imagine. What it imagines and how is within the purview of writers, who should, one hopes, have the freedom to express whatever they feel an urgency to express. Literature can imagine alternative realities, even alternative histories, and attentive writers are often sensitive to overlooked aspects of the past and present, along with future potentialities, which surface in their writing. Literature can project futures that seem to be foreclosed in the present. It can open ways of being, sensing, and perceiving that are disregarded within the dominant order. Books that engage the complexities of hybrid identities—so many across the world and in the Gulf region specifically—can allow readers to put themselves in positions they may not otherwise be privy to. This can be an enlightening experience and, in small ways, can alter points of view.

I never set out with an agenda when I write. I don’t have a plot planned out in advance or themes at the ready. Both An Unlasting Home and The Hidden Light of Objects, my collection of short stories, happen to involve characters in between languages, countries, identities, and experiences. I’m interested in exploring how different characters navigate these liminal spaces, how they deal with the difficulties as well as the rewards of occupying such positions. In Kuwait, residing outside the circle of normative identity is not a locus most like to engage with or even think about. This close-mindedness likely emerges as a result of entitlement, arrogance, greed, fear, and, at times, ignorance. I’m drawn to writing about the kinds of experiences and positions that the majority eschew. If this can affect a single reader, broaden their awareness to include experiences they either don’t recognize or don’t want to acknowledge, then that’s something.

What does it mean to you, at this stage of your life, to be a writer in Kuwait?

Kuwait, as a place, has been and remains central to my writing—my academic work, but especially my fiction. Because of its geographical location at the northwest corner of the Gulf, embraced by land and sea, a crossroads for so many from all over the region, Palestine, Syria, Iran, India, and beyond, its history as a result of this singular location and mixed inhabitants, its islands and seafaring past, the invasion and what I call the forgotten Gulf War, and, and, and—for all of these reasons and more, I find Kuwait endlessly fascinating, full of a lifetime’s worth of material to excavate and explore. Kuwait happens to be the place where I was born and grew up, the country of my citizenship, and where I am currently located, so it has become the landscape of my creative work. It could have been otherwise.

I was a professor of English and comparative literature at Kuwait University for twenty years. I recently retired in order to focus full time on my writing. It’s been a long time coming for me because writing is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do since I was a child, but when I came of age in Kuwait, that wasn’t really an option. Writing was something one did on the side of one’s real career. The career closest to writing fiction, I figured at the time, was studying literature, so that’s what I did. I don’t regret the circuitous path my career and life have taken, but at this point, it feels right to shift gears. It has required a leap of faith for me to let go of the identity and position within academia that I have occupied for most of my adult life. It has felt risky, even vertiginous, but it has brought me closer to who I was as a kid and teenager, more willing to take chances, which feels both exhilarating and freeing.

How do you see technology, particularly AI, reshaping the creative process for writers in the future?

While I have no issues with AI as a useful tool to be utilized in a wide range of fields, from medicine and archaeology, to engineering and translation, among others, I don’t think it’s great for artistic creativity. This is not to say that in time AI won’t be able to closely mimic human artistic creativity; it likely will. My question is, why? Why do we need AI to take over in areas where humans want to do the creative work for themselves? Why do we need AI to write screenplays, literary or genre fiction, lyrics, poetry, novels, plays of all kinds? Why do we need AI to produce music, art, humor, or to take over the roles of actors, graphic designers, furniture designers, or architects? From my perspective, the process of creative artistic production is as significant—maybe more significant—than the end result. It is the process that makes the writer a writer, someone who wants to write because they must, not because they want attention, likes, or other momentary ego-boosters. With AI involved, writing and artistic production are reduced to expedience, speed, and profit. These things, which eliminate process, are good for capital accumulation, but rarely for creative expansion. In the field of creative artistic production, AI will intensify an already widespread phenomenon: a sense that we’ve heard, read, and seen it all before; a form of repetition without difference; output reduced to familiar formulas and algorithms. AI will accelerate this barrage of output, a deluge of quantity with no guarantee of quality (in fact, there is almost certainly an inverse relationship between the two). Transformative and lasting human creativity and artistic production involve slowness, thoughtful pondering, protracted attention—the kinds of things current technologies, including social media and AI, eviscerate. Over the last few years, even before the arrival of ChatGPT, I witnessed the dulling of these characteristics in my students. Even the dwindling number who still freely chose to study literature, nonetheless found it almost impossible to focus for more than ten minutes on assigned readings. They couldn’t resist the temptation to use whatever online tools were at their disposal to do as much of the work for them as possible (summarizing, researching, writing, thinking critically), thereby destroying the very process of reading and studying literature that they were seemingly there to learn. I’m no Luddite, but where this is going isn’t where I would prefer to be as a writer.

As you reflect on your career and the direction your writing is taking, what are the most important themes or ideas you want to explore in the coming years?

I don’t approach my career or individual writing projects with the kind of deliberation that would enable me to predict which themes I might want to explore in the future. There is always a kind of haphazard and accidental quality to the things I become interested in and decide to focus on for prolonged periods of time. I’m primarily interested in literary form and how it can pose and shape unexpected questions—and provide equally unexpected responses. Form is, to me, the driving force of (good) literature. One thread that I continue to want to pull on has to do with the way the private and personal are connected to the public sphere in unpredictable ways. I’m increasingly interested in how official grand narratives—whether national, religious, cultural, or whatever else—overwrite the intimate lives, the very bodily existence, of individuals, especially women.

I’m often asked whether my fiction is autobiographical, and I always turn this query around on the questioner: Why do you want to connect the writing back to the author’s life? Doesn’t that limit what the writing in question can do—that is, connect with you and many others, rather than only with the author? In other words, I dodge the question entirely! In fact, I would like to explore the autobiographical component in my writing more explicitly, although still from the perspective of fiction rather than memoir or autobiography proper. I’ve kept a diary obsessively during many periods of my life, and there is something instinctual about that impulse in me that I would like to experiment with in my fiction. I think of myself as an extremely private person, so this would demand an element of courage. It’s a risk I feel ready, finally, to take.