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!"