For over 30 years, customers have flocked nightly to Al-Nawfara cafe to listen to tales told by Syria’’s last surviving storyteller

Tonight’s performance is about to begin. Abu Shady takes to his small stage at Al-Nawfara, the most atmospheric café in the old city of Damascus, and sits on his throne-like seat.

He begins with a quiet prayer, a call to God to help him perform tonight. The regulars who sit against the wall repeat their thanks to God.

Looking distinguished in a red tarboosh and broad cummerbund, Abu Shady starts his tale. It’s a story from Ottoman times about three men who are forced to deal with a bully who has arrived in town and is throwing his weight around. Some of the locals obviously know the story and enthusiastically repeat phrases, but the foreign visitors, some of whom don’t understand Arabic, seem equally engrossed.

Abu Shady brings his sword crashing down on a metal table, startling everyone, including two young foreign women sat in front of him. “Mafish mushkala,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. “No problem.” They giggle. The women are stirring their tea. The twinkle in his eye remains. “You’re stirring it the wrong way,” he tells them with a sly smile.

Every now and then Abu Shady interrupts his own narrative. When the waiter passes in front of him distributing glasses of chai, he slams his sword down loudly again. “Tea! Ashtray! Water!” he shouts, and everyone laughs. At one point, a mobile phone rings and everyone looks around. Abu Shady stops speaking and puts his own cell phone to his ear. There’s laughter all around. He speaks for a moment before returning the phone to his pocket. “Sorry,” he says. “It’s my wife.” And the crowd roars again.

Two years ago it was not like this. When this writer last saw Abu Shady perform it was at a simple chicken restaurant in the old working-class neighbourhood of Mirdan; the audience had dwindled to a dozen regulars and it appeared the general public was losing interest in listening to stories. At the time he told us despondently, “All anyone cares about is television, cinema, the internet… especially the younger generation. They’re not interested in traditional storytelling. It’s a dying art.”

These days Al-Nawfara fills quickly after the sunset prayer. There are regulars who come night after night, smoking nargileh, both Damascenes and Syrians from other parts of the country, as well as guidebook-clutching tourists. Abu Shady has been doing this every night for the last 30 years, sometimes twice a night, leaving to perform at another restaurant immediately after he finishes at Al-Nawfara. “It started as a hobby, and gradually it became my job,” he says.

“Abu Shady is very popular again,” explains Abu Ahmed, owner of Al-Nawfara. “There has been a revival. These days people phone to book tables. Storytelling has always been something special, but now there is renewed interest. There is a fascination with everything old again. There are serials on TV and films set in Old Damascus.”

The stories Abu Shady tells at Al-Nawfara are like television serials or soap operas – one story can last a whole year. “When I’m telling a story, I try to engage the audience and hold their attention,” he says. “Especially the foreign tourists, because they don’t always understand Arabic, and this old classical Arabic… not even all the Arabs understand this. I use a little English or German when I can, to grab their attention. I teach them a word of Arabic and get them to repeat it.”

“I get a thrill out of listening to Abu Shady,” says Saad Kaakarli, a 50-year-old Syrian-American. Kaakarli emigrated to the US in 1979, living in Detroit and Ohio. A contractor now living in Saudi Arabia, he returns to Damascus regularly. “As a child I used to skip school to come and watch the storyteller,” he recalls. “Since I returned I really get a kick out of coming to listen to him. This is entertainment; it’s theatre. Abu Shady – I love him. He’s my man!”

But Abu Shady is part of a dying breed. Now 65 years old, he is the last of Damascus’ traditional hakawatis, or storytellers. He had planned to groom his son Shady to take over from him but can no longer recommend the profession. “It doesn’t pay enough money. I don’t want my son to take over,” he says. Instead, his son specializes in the craft of karakoz, a form of puppetry.

“Of course I feel sorry that there is nobody to carry on after me,” says Abu Shady. “But it’s not my responsibility to find or train someone. It’s only my responsibility to maintain the tradition while I’m alive. Anybody could do it really, anybody with talent – a special talent. Of course I could train someone, but what for? It doesn’t pay anything.”

In the meantime, Abu Shady is translating his stories from classical Arabic into the common spoken language in a ruled notebook with neat lines of handwriting. “It has taken me six months to write these 30 pages and I’m not finished yet,” he says proudly, albeit somewhat wearily. “This is just one story, one long story, dating to before Islam. Nobody has translated these tales before. I’ll translate as many as I can before I die. I’ll translate them right up until my death.”

The moment Abu Shady finishes his storytelling for the night, people get up from their seats and leave. Abu Ahmed pulls the cord to a curtain on the wall and reveals a flat-screen TV. The television glows into life, but by now the café is almost empty. Music videos and football are sorely lacking in magic when compared to a performance by a genuine hakawati.

The prospect of losing the storyteller concerns Abu Ahmed. His family has owned Al-Nawfara for 75 years, and storytelling has been central to the café’s success. What will happen to the café without a storyteller? “Well,” Abu Ahmed says, “let’s hope God sends us another.”

Words Lara Dunston and Terence Carter
Photography Terence Carter

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