Whoever has the chance to visit libraries and places of books and magazines sellers in squares and main streets now will see a dazzling novel invasion, and perhaps will not find a single poetry collection or a single short story collection amidst this abundance of novel publications. 

During a field trip, I asked one of the book sellers at the Ramleh Station in Alexandria: Does the novel really sell more than other literary genres? He answered affirmatively. He said that if it did not sell, you would not find it on the "mat" now. I contemplated the scene for a long time and wondered: What happened to the readers' tastes, and what is the secret behind the spread of the novel in this way? The matter is not only related to the writer's name and fame but also there is a change or shift in readers' moods to the extent that some publishing houses announced that they do not accept poetry collections or short story collections, only novels. Some private publishing houses even started to pay incentives to novel writers, whereas they used to take printing costs from them before.

Not only that, but the novel now has come to express the prevailing thought in societies through its multiple techniques, and it has become more democratic than reality itself through opinion and counter-opinion, hero and anti-hero, language and anti-language, as well as the possibility of turning a novel into a cinematic, television, or even radio work.

Also, the novel does not require its writer to adhere to a specific strict form; each novel comes with its form and can encompass all other literary forms within it.

Some poets have turned to writing novels, perhaps realizing that the novel can say what poetry has not said, perhaps poetry has narrowed in front of their visions, ideas, and different variations.

I recently entered the world of novels, but from the gate of poetry. I started as a poet and had many poetry collections published by the Egyptian General Book Authority, the Supreme Council for Culture, and private publishers, totaling thirteen collections, and received the State Incentive Award for Written Poetry for Children in 2007. So my interest in language, imagery, and evocative expression comes, as most of my fictional heroes practice writing poetry. Youssef Abdel Aziz, the journalist in "Editor-in-Chief," is a poet, and Omar Yassin in "Loving Water" is a poet, even Mahmoud Said in "Loving Color" was a lover of poetry and wrote it from time to time besides being a visual artist. Also in "The Loving Stone," poems come from the stone itself.

Therefore, I did not feel that there is a dramatic shift between poetry and the novel, leading some critics or writers to label "transformers" those poets who practice writing novels now.

Certainly, we live in the age of the novel, and no one can deny that. Sometimes, I read astonishing novel works by young authors, perhaps who have never written before. They discover themselves and successfully write their experiences, even if few, opening a new, unknown world for many. From here, the novel contributes to knowing new realms, so some critics believe that the novel now relies on knowledge or information. It fits the information age we are living in now.

But honestly, I have never liked writing the novel – or even the short story – in colloquial dialects. Dialogue may come in colloquialism appropriate for each character, even though our great writer Naguib Mahfouz managed to solve this problem and articulate the dialogue on the tongues of his lower-class characters. Yet, we never felt a superiority over colloquialism, nor did we sense any linguistic duality in this regard. But when a Tunisian writer, for example, writes his novel in colloquial or common dialect, or a Saudi writer writes his novel in Nabati, or a Jordanian or Sudanese writer writes his novel in his country's dialect, this creates a kind of break between him and the readers in other Arab countries. I believe this contradicts the goals of the writer aiming to reach different readers in the Arab homeland and looking forward to discussing his works in various countries. If the poets who write their poems in their country's dialects are not understood in other countries, then what about novel writing, which relies on narration, dialogue, description, etc., the novel's techniques?

I am not here to deny poetry from the literary scene, but I believe the hierarchy has changed in recent years, and the novel now dominates all different literary forms. In fact, it has become – as previously stated – a haven for all these forms. It just requires a skillful architect who knows how to build his world of words, characters, dialogues, descriptions, plots, cultures, and extended narration that he knows precisely when to slow it down, when to accelerate it, and when to stop it within a thrilling framework that the reader pursues, confident in the pleasure and benefit achieved by the work in his hands.