Things I Didn't Know I Loved*
* If you are a dreamer, come in.
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in! Come in!
(Shel Silverstein)
February 28, 2006
Alaa al-Aswany
'In Egypt and in the Arab world, being a novelist doesn't mean you can make your living from your writing. Before HarperCollins [decided to publish the translated version for wide release in Britain], what I got from The Yacoubian Building I consider as covering the price of the cigarettes and coffee I bought while I was writing it.'
Interesting writer, but a few dodgily-worded remarks: 'Writing is a part of our battle for democracy' and 'For the past two decades Egypt has adopted...a very closed, not at all tolerant - a kind of Taliban interpretation [of Islam]'. Is Alaa polishing potentially profitable* Western apples, or is that just my cynicism getting the better of me again?
Read Al-Aswany's hot-off-the-press interview with The Guardian.
*no alliteration intended
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