Word: als
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After the huge success in 2002 of his first novel, The Yacoubian Building - another scathing examination of Egypt's malaise - Al Aswany is already drawing comparisons to the nation's Nobel literature laureate, Naguib Mahfouz. Such high praise may be a little premature: Mahfouz founded modern Arabic literature and wrote almost 50 novels over half a century. But Al Aswany - who continues to work on the side as a dentist in Cairo - does share the legendary author's talent for constructing simple stories about Egyptian life that convey universal truths in defense of human dignity. His writing tackles the most...
...Al Aswany acknowledges a literary debt to Mahfouz, in more ways than one. During a crisis of confidence in his 20s, he ran into Mahfouz at a hotel in Alexandria and received a three-hour pep talk from the master. Rejecting the Arab vogue for postmodernism, Al Aswany has stayed true to the Mahfouz tradition of social realism. And like Mahfouz, he has a gift for writing literary page turners that are endlessly discussed by café intellectuals while also being accessible to Egyptians who normally have more time for Al-Ahly, their favorite football team. "He is read everywhere...
...Some of Al Aswany's popularity undoubtedly stems from his delight in smashing social taboos. Apart from the barbs against Egypt's regime that flow from his characters' mouths, the author has expressed understanding, if not actual sympathy, for Islamic extremists, and has written explicitly about issues like homosexuality and abortion that had long been taboo in Arabic literature. One of the main characters in Yacoubian, for example, is the gay editor of a Cairo newspaper, who uses money to seduce a married Egyptian soldier desperate to feed his family. In Chicago, a female character visits a sex shop...
...Al Aswany relishes crafting a good yarn - he spends months sketching every detail of his characters' lives and personalities before weaving them into his narratives - he is also zealous about the artist's role as social critic. Rarely has that burden seemed more important in the Middle East, with Al Aswany serving as a relatively lonely advocate of liberalism caught in a struggle against an entrenched authoritarian regime on one hand and a rising, chauvinistic Islamist movement on the other. "This is a battle for democracy," he explains during one in a series of interviews with TIME. "Writing is part...
...some half a million copies and was adapted into a box-office hit starring Arab cinema's top actors, is a brilliant depiction of the troubles plaguing contemporary Egypt. The saga of the inhabitants of a downtown Cairo apartment building, it examines the historical, social and political vicissitudes that Al Aswany believes have left the country in a state of physical and moral ruin. One character, Zaki Bey, is the scion of an aristocratic clan, an Egyptian Romeo who uses his Yacoubian Building office for lecherous assignations, oblivious to the crumbling edifice around him. At the lower...