The Interview

By day a Cairo dentist and by night a novelist, he spent years battling censorship to get published. Today, he is a bestselling writer across the world and remains a fierce critic of Egypt's repressive regime. Rachel Cooke talks to the acclaimed author about love, torture, and why he still practises dentistry.

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• Rachel Cooke
• The Observer, Sunday 31 May 2009

Alaa Al Aswany photographed at the Gore Hotel, London, May 2009. Photograph: Andy Hall

Alaa al Aswany, the Arab world's bestselling novelist, swallows the last of his morning coffee, and throws back his boulder-like head in a gesture that comes close to, but is not quite, contentment. He is longing for a cigarette, too, only today he is not at home in Cairo, where he can happily smoke himself to death if he so chooses (the Egyptians puff their way through 19 million cigarettes every day) but in the quiet confines of the Gore hotel, Kensington; it will be a while longer before he can scoot out to the pavement and light up.
Still, he is not complaining. As cities go, London is not bad. "I have feelings about cities," he says in his wonderful, solemn English. "The kind of feelings a man has towards ladies. Some I love, and some ... not." London is one of those Aswany loves, though it cannot, in his view, touch Cairo or even Alexandria. "Ah! I cannot be objective about Egypt. It is only in Egypt that I feel myself. When I'm abroad, I'm someone who has much in common with myself, but it's not really me. I am always homesick!"

Choose ONE of the following:
> About 170 words
>Add comments to at least 3 of your classmates’ blogs

1.Write about a career-related website that you enjoy visiting.

You should:-

• provide a link
• describe the website (sections, features,etc)
• say how often you visit the site
• explain why you like the site.
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2.Who is a person/expert on your field that you admire?

Say:

• Who she/he is.(short biography)
• What she/he has done. (examples of their work)
• Why you like her/him.
• Include his/her image

Well. I suppose the career related website that I visit most is the Guardian newspaper.

It's the website of a famous broadsheet newspaper in the UK. Politically it has traditionally positioned itself a little left-of centre. My uncle says it's for poofs and teachers. I started reading it at University and I haven't stopped since.

I visit the site every day, it's one of the pages that opens automatically when I connect to the internet. It's the only site I use to check on British news. I like it because it's completely free, well made and well designed and I generally agree with the opinions the writers have.

It also has quite a lot of international news which can be uncommon for British newspapers and has great sports coverage. The sports writers regularly make me laugh out loud because they all write with an attitude that says, sport is a silly triviality, despite being experts in the area and despite clearly having dedicated their entire lives to it.

There are also forums to leave comments and argue with uninformed idiots you'll never meet, and there are podcasts, programs in an mp3 format to download and listen to.

Online newspapers are struggling to make their businesses work but I really hope this page continues. I think it's probably the only web page I would be willing to pay for. Maybe.