For the first time, the idea of creating the World Organization of Writers was put forward at the literary forum “Creating the image of the future Man and the man of the Future in literature” in 2019 in Azerbaijan

By Ashraf Aboul-Yazid

World writers and poets signed a Memorandum of Intention to create the World Organization of Writers (WOW) in Cairo, as an initiative raised by the VI Eurasian Literary Festival of Festivals held in Egypt across January and February 2023.

For the first time, the idea of creating the World Organization of Writers was put forward at the literary forum “Creating the image of the future Man and the man of the Future in literature” within the framework of the Eurasian Literary Festival LIffT-2019 in the Republic of Azerbaijan, where writers from 52 countries of the  world gathered.

Over the next three years of international literary forums and festivals, the number of participants has increased significantly, and there is a need to create such an organization.

Today, only a moral and responsible person can save the world full of contradictions, poverty and hunger, inequality, epidemics and what is especially scary, the misanthropic ideas of fascism, nationalism, extremism and terrorism, which must be permanently removed from the spiritual and ideological arsenal of mankind.

That is why the problems of humanitarian security and modernization should be integrated into all protocols of interaction between countries and peoples.

An initiative group of writers from 12 countries of the world within the framework of the VI Eurasian Literary Festival LIffT-2023 in the Arab Republic of Egypt issued a statement/memorandum of intent to create the World Organization of Writers (WOW), whose goals and objectives are aimed at humanitarian modernization and the development of spiritual and moral values.

WOW’s goals are to create unified literary space for writers of the world and strengthening of creative and friendly ties of the writers from five continents on the basis of spiritual and moral values common to all peoples, as the main strategic resource of sustainable and safe human existence. In an interview with Ashraf Aboul-Yazid, Margarita Al, president of the International Literary Movement “LIffT”, introduced the WOW news for public – for the first time – during a TV Program in the Egyptian Cultural Nile Channel.

The initiative group who signed the memorandum are Al- Mukhametova Margarita, Russia, president of the International Literary Movement “LIffT””, acting president of the World Organization of Writers (WOW), Biryukov Sergey, Germany, Delba Vladimir, Abkhazia, Kedrov Konstantin, Russia, Victor Klykov, Austria, Medvedko Olga, Russia, Olzeeva Elena, Russia, Ratkevich Alexander, Belarus, Wale Okediran, Nigeria, Prithviraj Taur, India, JahRose Jafta, South Africa, Antonio Jose, Spain, Ashraf Aboul-Yazid, Egypt, Juan Carlos Tevez Baddouh, Uruguay|Netherlands, Marcel Salimov, Russia. Some other participants who signed online are Eldar Akhadov, Azerbaijan, Bekhit Rustemov, Kazakhstan, Ruben Dario, Colombia, Abdukakhor Kosimov, Tajikistan, Abdulla Vahsh, Uzbekistan, and Ko Un, South Korea who sent this poetic message:

“Eurasia is an old continent in the history of man. But today’s us it is paradoxically a new continent.

Now we are accomplishing an autonomy of the universality of huge Eurasia that is not an ‘other,’ and therefore we have come to proclaim the complex concept of the new Eurasian literature.

There were already adventures going beyond the boundary and limits: we remember that the ancient Indian epic worlds were connected to the Greek epics and the Arabic civilization and the Chinese civilization immersed in modern Western civilization.

Now hopefully this 21st century will be a century in which Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America and North America will dance in all colors in the huge/colossal space where all breathe together.

It is also an important symbol that the place where the Eurasian Literature Association is born with this role/task in mind is coincidently Cairo, Egypt.

In Egyptian language, the words ‘distant’ and ‘near’ are not separated/independent; they are conflated/combined/converged into one word ‘distant-near’.

In this Association the literature of every region of Asia and Europe are not isolated by far distance from each other; they are in solidarity unity and join each other in literature. The word meaning of ‘distant –near’ is playing a variation in a Eurasian language from the Egyptian word.

Many congratulations from my deep heart.

I will read you one of my little poems to celebrate this meaningful event.

A Certain Joy

What I am thinking now

Is what someone else has already thought

Somewhere in this world.

Don’t cry.

What I am thinking now

is what someone else is thinking now

Somewhere in this world.

Don’t cry.

What I am thinking now

is what someone else is about to think

Somewhere in this world.

Don’t cry.

How joyful it is

That I am composed of so many ‘I’s

In this world, somewhere in this world.

How joyful it is

That I am composed of so many others

Don’t cry.”

Today, Margarita Al, the acting president of the World Organization of Writers (WOW) announced the launch of the official WOW Website (http://wow-lifft.com/) from Moscow, in English and Russian. Tasks of WOW are lined in the expansion of professional interaction, exchange of experience in organizing literary forums and festivals, increasing the prestige of literature and the authority of a modern writer in society, promotion and interchange of literary publications, support and promotion of literary works with the perspective of creating an image of a man of the future and the contribution of writers to the creation of the multipolar world with humanitarian priorities.

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Ashraf Aboul Yazid is Egypt’s world known writer, poet, novelist, travelogue writer, Editor-in-Chief at Silk Road Literature Series. He is author of some three dozen books.