Sonallah Ibrahim answers the question: How do I write?

It is not easy for a writer to talk about his experience, because when he does, it is like cutting his way through a forest of tangled branches, which requires effort and skill to untangle, not to mention determining where to start.

Perhaps the external factors that influenced the writer’s career are the best introduction to this discussion. They are less difficult to address and are usually shared by a number of writers, or even an entire generation. I was not alone in becoming aware of the turmoil of the early 1950s and witnessing the birth of a new realist movement in poetry, fiction, painting, sculpture, and music.