[ Bogtip efter Tarik Bary ] The well-known artist Mohieddin Ellabbad presents a new and beautiful form of child writing in his wonderful book The Painter's Notebook. In this book, Ellabbad tells his recollections of items and places stored in his memory in one form or another. An autobiography of a special kind, the book tells Ellabbad’s story through senses, memories and impressions. How could Ellabbad keep the minute details and early delicate impressions, which all of us forget when we grow up and bury beneath the bigger and less beautiful things in life, in his consciousness and sensual memory for so many long years? That is the question.Mohieddin Ellabbad writes about small souvenirs: very old photos of people wearing Egyptian traditional clothes such as gilbab (smock) and headbands; old post cards on which there is a stamp that has a photo of King Fouad. His memories also feature a bus ticket. The writer moves from souvenirs to dreams, early impressions and the beginnings of interpreting the world from the viewpoint of a young boy and the perspective of the first events ever: the first monthly pocket money, the first notebook, the first love story, how it began and the first touch. The topics tackled by the book are undoubtedly simple. However, they are simple in a philosophical way. All such dreams and first events are traced skilfully by the writer. He traces the development of his relationship with them from first moments; such moments where his memory and imagination were more active in conceiving them than reality. Then he moves to the moment where the first events became a reality without imagination or childhood. At such moments, things become less beautiful. They become normal, everything without exception. What is really thrilling is that the ‘Painter Writer’ guides the reader through from memories and narration to education. He teaches the reader how to receive life as a reality, an imagination, souvenirs, photos, colours, a touch, an impression, an explanation and a technique. Ellabbad’s style is mainly characterized by simplicity, clarity and is reader-oriented. It is also characterized by parenthood or teacher-hood. This may not be explicit in the book, but it is implicitly there and takes a didactic form. Vocabulary is simple and clear. Difficult words are explained within the text, not in footnotes. This makes the text reader-friendly. Drawings and text are so interwoven that the drawing becomes a text and vice versa. Memoirs also interfere with working techniques; and so do easy and difficult items, familiar and unfamiliar ones. This may be the reason that the German version and the Arabic original text are published in one bilingual book.

[ Boginfo ] Ellabbad, Mohieddin : The Illustrator’s Notebook. (original language: English) Groundwood Book, 2006 . ISBN: 978-0888997005.