Mirror World

“Such considerations have meant that while it is usually not difficult for Arab authors to be published—quite a few publish their books themselves—it is much more difficult to gain a public profile or readership, and it is almost impossible to make a living from writing books. As a result, Arab authors almost always have full-time jobs, often in the large bureaucracies that are a feature of Arab countries, reserving their writing for their spare time. It is well known, for example, that Mafouz kept a steady job almost up to the end of his life, first as a bureaucrat and then as a newspaper commentator, and many memoirs by Arab writers complain about both the need to earn a living and the absence of public interest in their literary work. The temptation is always strong to take some bureaucratic job, which can have disastrous effects on an author’s writing.”

—David Tresilian A Brief Introduction to Modern Arabic Literature (Saqi: 2008)