![]() ![]() ![]() More writers from Egypt made the longlist for the $50,000, 2011 International Arabic Prize for Fiction (IPAF) than writers from any other country. Even at Powell’s, arguably the greatest (and largest) independent bookstore in the country, I couldn’t find Mansoura Ez Eldin’s first novel, the critically acclaimed, widely read Maryam’s Maze. When I returned to to Portland, Oregon - I noticed the conspicuous absence of these books on the shelves of my city. Just across the 6th of October Bridge in the Zemalek neighborhood, Diwan had an extensive collection of contemporary Egyptian novels, essays, and short stories. I spent an afternoon at the Cairo’s Diwan Bookstore, talking to writers about their hopes - and anxieties - about the future. ![]() Novelists were writing columns for every significant newspaper the opinions of fiction writers like Alaa Al Aswany were hotly debated on satellite news channels and in streetside cafes, over backgammon. Literature, it seemed, might just be at the vanguard of Egypt’s social change. In Cairo, in March, the city had a surplus of intellectual energy. ![]()
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