Egyptian novelist (he is also a dentist in Cairo) Alaa al-Aswany, author of the best selling 2002 novel The Yacoubian Building (on our reading list in the syllabus), is profiled in today’s Sunday New York Times Magazine in an article by Pankaj Mishra (”Where Alaa al-Aswany is Writing From”). Among the comments al-Aswany made to Mishra: “‘We are in the worst phase of our history…Inequality has never been so extreme, and the Egyptian government has failed in all fields - health, education, democracy, everything,’” and, “‘This country has so much talent. We deserve to be so much better. And I am optimistic that we will be. But, you know, the biggest problem with dictatorship is that a dictator doesn’t respect his own citizens. If you seize power and you know that the people can’t resist you, there is no way you can respect the people.’”
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