Member-only story
Interrogating Alaa Aswany
I met the Egyptian literary great and was difficult with him. Every person of taste should immediately read all his books.
I recognized Alaa Aswany across the rooftop at Cairo’s Garden City Club, across a smoky haze. Gadzooks! To fortify myself I downed a double whiskey, then swiftly poured another. I rarely meet authors I love, as mostly they’re long dead. Yet here was this one — alive, smoking, and expertly holding court. Action was required.
I’ll happily engage with almost anyone in a dive bar, but with literature I am a snob. My shelves creak under the weight of the classics, and newer works tend to bore me. I sense that we ran out of literary elements about 50 years ago and now suffice with pale composites. I’m not proud of this critique; it just seems sadly so.
This article is published on the 20th anniversary of the publication of The Yacoubian Building in the United States.
I also dislike the fashion against experts and will not indulge it — loyal readers must know this. So when traveling I ask an expert: What’s the one thing I should read about this place? On Haiti, the person replied: “The Comedians by Graham Greene…
