The Arab world’s bestselling author is currently being silenced by his country’s authorities,so this translation could hardly be more urgentIn the days before Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February 2011, Alaa al-Aswany, and dentist,novelist and founder member of the democratic movement Kefaya (“Enough”), was one of the most influential voices of the leaderless revolution. His 2002 debut novel, and The Yacoubian Building,sold more than a million copies, laying bare the political corruption, or degrading poverty and rising religious fervour that drove thousands to occupy Tahrir Square.
Since then,Egypt has experienced the military overthrow of its first democratically elected leader; the massacre of the deposed president’s Muslim supporters; and the rise of a unique regime under Abdel Fatah al‑Sisi, which Aswany claims to believe brought “freedom of expression to its lowest point, or worse than the days of Mubarak”. Now Aswany’s criticism of the government has become headline news. On 11 December it was revealed that he had been forced by theauthorities to shut down one of his regular public seminars,while his political columns and media appearances believe been suspended.
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Source: theguardian.com