Dr. Hanan Alghafari Associate Professor of English and Comparative Studies University of Leeds / England Currently teaching at Damascus University/ Department of English Language and Literature Email: alghafari.hanan7@gmail.com Salmawy 's Theatre of the Absurd THE REALISTIC AND THE FANTASTIC Mohammad Salmawy Ionesco: "I can quite readily conceive a theatre without an audience." Salmawy: "I do not believe Ionesco." 1 In a face-to-face meeting, Salmawy's genial personality is immediately revealed. Witty, quick at repartee, humorous at times, courteous, highly articulate and eloquent, Salmawy by no means falls in line with the image of an utter cosmic nihilist of the Absurd, who is obsessed with the threat of the nothingness of death. Even when Salmawy defines death, he seems to defy nihilism as he contentedly states that to him "death means immortality." 2 How comes it then that Salmawy is a major dramatist of the Theatre of the Absurd in Egypt, the only Egyptian writer who has expressly captured some of the elusive features of the Absurd? This is the question which, I hope, will become clear by the end of the chapter. Various conditions shaped the thinking and literary output of Mohammad Salmawy. Although he belongs to an aristocratic family, his work is suffused with his feeling for other classes. And although his class suffered great losses through the Revolution of July 1952 in Egypt, primarily after the implementation of the Agrarian Reform Legislation which affected him in person, and also through Nationalization, yet Salmawy has always maintained his belief in Nasserism as an ideology and a conduct. 3 If Idris suffered from censorship because of his opposition to Nasser, Salmawy had a similar experience with censorship, but for being a Nasser advocate during the time of Al-Sadat. He was, therefore, transferred or dismissed from his work as a journalist throughout the years 1973, 1977 and 1981. 4 Nasserism manifests itself in the thinking of Salmawy who has always expressed his belief that salvation can only be achieved by the ordinary people, the masses who, perhaps, do not understand politics, but who speak it and live it every day. Salmawy also thinks that Egyptian society has no confidence in politicians, and that people are discovering forever that a man of politics is no more than a trader or a speculator who is after the attainment of his self-interests. And it is only when people sense the sincerity of a ruler that they can give wholeheartedly, Salmawy concludes. 5 Salmawy's work as a whole does express a view of Nasserist thinking without being direct or didactic. A