PROFILE

ali omar ermes
the power of the letter

Southern England, in the middle of May: as I drive to my appointment along winding country lanes, their hedgerows frothing with hawthorn blossom and wildflowers, it strikes me that this seems an odd place in which to visit one of the Arab world's leading artists and intellectual voices. I am on my way to meet Ali Omar Ermes, who for almost three decades has lived and worked outside his native Libya. Here, in the heart of the English countryside, is where he has made his home, at least for the time being. I turn a corner and there on the crest of a hill sits his house, enticingly screened by a grove of established trees. He greets me at the door, smiling warmly and explaining that, "it was a chapel many years ago," in reply to my question on the history of the house, "and was later converted into a private residence." With mullion windows and elegant sandstone facades, the building has an imposing yet welcoming presence and is set in mature gardens. All very English, in fact.

However, the interior of the house presents a different aspect altogether, for this is very much the home of a man clearly steeped in Islam - in all senses, be they religious, intellectual or artistic - but who also succeeds in ensuring that his faith sits easily with life in his adopted country. Ermes lives here with his wife and extended family, and leads me into a comfortable library, full of Chesterfield sofas, wooden panelling and endless shelves of leather-bound books. The room is imbued with an atmosphere of scholarship, academic enquiry and intellectual exchange. Coffee is brought in by Ermes's son, Mohammed, and...