A COPTIC QUILL: THE FIRST BOOK IN MODERN COPTIC LITERATURE

A group of Coptic language enthusiasts, the RemEnKimi Group, which was founded in 2000, has published in 2010 (1726 AM) a digital book that contains several pieces of modern Bohairic Coptic literature created by the enthusiasts themselves. The book, which is 204 pages long, is called ‘oumehi enremenkimi’ (A Coptic Quill). There is no mentioned editor, but the book contains forty pieces of different genres of literature written by Abram, Amun, Abu Dukhana, Yustus, Isaac, Mina, Pashenti, Salib, Sandra, Tanios, Psada and Titi. The full names of the authors are not given. The reader can access the book here.

The book is created, the unnamed compiler of the book writes, “[W]hen we took some quills that fell from an ibis, we wrote letters, poems, songs, thoughts, plays, stories, contemplations, verses, hymns, biographies, prayers, psalis, lectures and collage in Coptic.”[1]  This is to my knowledge the first such collection of different genres of literature written by modern Copts, and indeed it has no precedent. Because of this it must be welcomed and hailed. But we must observe the following:

• The book is not printed;
• The book is not edited;
• There are several spelling and grammatical mistakes in it;
• All the pieces are purely religious;
• The pieces, despite a certain beauty, cannot be said to be of fine literature.

Nevertheless, the book must be encouraged. It is pioneering and contains stories, plays and attempts at poetry. This is the stuff that forms the core of real literature. One day a Copt will emerge who would be our Alexander Pushkin, and, writing in beautiful Coptic prose and verse, will lay the foundation for a great age of Coptic literature.

_________________________________________

[1] A Coptic Quill, 3^rd Edition (2010), p. 1.