Alaa Al-Aswany

J Magazine meets the multi-talented Egyptian who is as adept at root canal surgery as he is writing the defining novels of a generation

Text_Kate Douglas

The Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury recently declared: “Al-Aswany reinvented the popular Egyptian novel, which had died.”

To claim Al-Aswany has single-handedly revived Arabic literature may not be such an exaggeration. His book, The Yacoubian Building, the biggest-selling Arabic novel of the past decade, was translated into 17 languages and adapted into the most expensive Arabic movie of all time. His latest work, Chicago, currently tops the bestseller charts throughout the region. English translations will be published in the UK and US in September, and a big-screen version will no doubt follow.

Speaking to J Magazine from his Cairo home, Al-Aswany seems slightly overwhelmed by his phenomenal success. “This week the 13th edition [of Chicago] sold out,” he says with a hint of bewilderment. “That’s 130,000 copies in Arabic in under a year and a half. It’s evidence I’m on the right track and that I have something in my writing people appreciate.”

Set in the period after 9/11, Chicago revolves around a group of Arab characters who face stereotypes and cultural barriers while studying at one of the city’s medical schools, a premise inspired by Al-Aswany’s experiences as a Chicago dental student. “I’m not concerned about its European success,” he confides. “But I hope Americans will understand that I love the US, but that nowhere on earth has a perfect society.”

His own country isn’t spared his criticism. In The Yacoubian Building Al-Aswany takes on the Egyptian establishment through a group of characters who all live in the eponymous Cairo apartment block where he once owned an office. An upmarket property during Cairo’s colonial heyday, the neglected building signifies the city’s downfall, while the characters – including among them radical Islamists, crooked politicians and sex workers – bust open a catalogue of taboo subjects, fuelling the novel’s popularity – and infamy.

“They don’t like the idea of independent writers,” Al-Aswany says passionately when I mention the criticism heaped on The Yacoubian Building by some Egyptian politicians. “These writers are usually outspoken people who don’t share the interests of the regime. Freedom of expression only exists in countries where there is democracy – of which there is none in most Arab countries.” Al-Aswany continues to write regular political columns for both national and international newspapers, and passionately voices the opinions of the non-violent opposition group Kefaya (“Enough” in Arabic). “It is my duty as a citizen to write as a journalist,” he explains.

Such literary repression sits oddly with Egypt’s strong and long history of influential authors – including among them one of Al-Aswany’s mentors, the late Naguib Mahfouz, the only Arab winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. “Egypt has always leant towards literature,” Al-Aswany concurs. “Most of the best writers in the Arab world have been Egyptians. In poetry you have many very powerful Iraqi poets. But with short stories and novels the Egyptians have always been very efficient. The government has always let us write – they just will not listen to us.”

His groundbreaking novels do not only symbolise change – or at least a calling for change – in the Arab world. At the moment, only a tiny number of Arabic novels are translated into English. One of Al-Aswany’s long-term goals is to get more Arabic literature translated and read in Europe and North America, and help change the way Arabs tend to be perceived by the West.

“I think it has always been a problem of communication,” Al-Aswany says. “The first Arabic-to-English translations were done two centuries ago, mostly by Orientalists. Some were efficient and honest, but some didn’t care about literature itself but rather about the issues the books covered. They therefore just chose texts that would promote certain stereotypes about the Arab world.” But this hasn’t been the only problem. “The other reason is I don’t think the Arab organisations and ministries of culture have made enough effort to preserve Arab literature – which goes back several centuries.”

Al-Aswany’s ability to empathise with people’s perceptions and sensibilities is the secret not only of his literary career but also that of his first vocation and continuing sideline, as a dentist. “You must see the people beyond their teeth, or you’re in trouble,” he says. “If you cannot put your patient in a human context, it is a very frustrating profession. You must care about people, and not only their teeth.”

Dr Alaa says the secret of his success is his ability to connect with the everyday hopes, fears and problems experienced by his readers. But what about Al-Aswany himself? Does he in some way appear in his own novels? “I am everywhere,” he cries. “There is much in common between writing novels and acting. At one moment, as an author, you are no longer yourself – you take on another character. I do this with my writing. I am whoever I am pretending to be.”