The Stories We Tell: Dr Said Yaktine on Cultural Memory in the Age of Transformation

At the 45th Sharjah International Book Fair, Morocco's celebrated literary critic argues that authenticity and modernity need not be antagonists. The challenge for writers and societies, he suggests, lies in honouring the memories that shape us while remaining open to the world.

In the quiet spaces between tradition and change, a question emerges that matters profoundly to anyone who believes in the power of stories. How do we remain rooted in who we are whilst embracing the forces reshaping how we learn, communicate and understand the world? This tension animated a conversation at the 45th Sharjah International Book Fair, where Dr Said Yaktine, the Cultural Personality of the Year, offered a vision of cultural life that refuses false choices.

Dr Yaktine, a Moroccan literary critic and scholar, began not with theory but with memory. He recalled the neighbourhoods of his childhood in Morocco, where oral storytellers gathered audiences in public squares, weaving narratives that continued from one gathering to the next. These were not formal cultural institutions. They were neighbourhoods, food, everyday customs, the rhythms of social relationship. And yet they shaped his understanding of what it means to be human.

“We are fundamentally a storytelling people,” Dr Yaktine reflected during the session titled ‘Said Yaktine: The Memory of Storytelling and the Breadth of Thought’, moderated by Emirati poet and author Shaikha Al Mutairi. “A child comes home from school and starts telling the story of what happened. We come back from work and tell each other what happened during the day.” Popular culture, he insisted, carries weight and value equal to formal culture. It is woven into the fabric of how communities sustain themselves.

Yet the spaces where these exchanges once flourished have transformed. Traditional squares and gathering places have in some cases disappeared or shifted their purpose as cities have expanded and commercial spaces have multiplied. Dr Yaktine’s concern was neither nostalgic nor anti-modern. Rather, he argued that cultural memory itself risks being displaced by the very forces that reshape our cities and our lives.

The digital age has accelerated this challenge. Younger generations increasingly learn and engage with the world through technologies that, for all their power, can distance them from the local memories and traditions that give their societies particular character. “We have to intervene. We have to guide. We have to mentor,” Dr Yaktine said, suggesting that this responsibility falls to adults, to institutions, to those who understand what is at stake.

For writers, the imperative is equally clear. Engagement with global literary developments remains necessary and vital. Yet as we reported in recent conversations at SIBF about who truly owns the story, authenticity requires writers to remain rooted in questions that emerge from their own cultural environment. “The true novelist, in my opinion, should return to authentic patterns of life,” Dr Yaktine argued. This does not mean parochialism. It means recognising that a distinctive voice emerges precisely from the tension between local particularity and universal human experience.

What emerges from Dr Yaktine’s reflection is a vision in which cultural authenticity and modernity are not opposing forces. Societies can engage with new forms of knowledge, technology and expression whilst continuing to value the local memories, relationships and traditions that define them. The challenge is not to choose between past and future, but to tend the memory that connects them.

What it means for Abu Dhabi

The emirate has long understood that cultural preservation and contemporary achievement are complementary pursuits. As we have noted in our coverage of libraries as keepers of civilisation, the region’s commitment to preserving collective memory through cultural institutions remains strong even as the emirates embrace rapid technological change. Dr Yaktine’s reflections affirm the wisdom of this approach.

For Abu Dhabi’s creative communities and cultural institutions, the message is clear: there is no contradiction between engaging with the world and remaining true to the distinctive voice that comes from deep cultural roots. The 45th Sharjah International Book Fair, held until November 15 at Expo Centre Sharjah, continues to provide a space where such conversations flourish, bringing together writers, thinkers and audiences from across the globe to explore what it means to tell stories that matter.

Source: WAM, November 6, 2026