Via I'm pointed to Safaa Azab's Q & A ("an abridged version of an interview originally conducted in Arabic") at Asharq Al-Awsat Gamal El-Ghitani: Nasser should have listened to Naguib Mahfouz.
Not sure how much went missing in translation, but at least some (starting) points of interst re. the current literary situation in Egypt, with the Zayni Barakat-author finding:
Not sure how much went missing in translation, but at least some (starting) points of interst re. the current literary situation in Egypt, with the Zayni Barakat-author finding:
There is a huge amount of talent and it all depends on the skillfulness of cultural institutions in supporting the emerging creative writers.But he finds the local cultural institutions (in particular the Ministry of Culture) are failing, "opposing some writers merely because they do not like them", etc. So, to -- and hardly surprisingly:
As a result, young writers have turned their backs on ministries of culture, and this is evidenced by the fact that the output of the best young literary writers has not come out of state institutions but rather out of private publishing houses, such as Merit [Publishing House].Government (or private-institutional -- of which there isn't that much in Egypt) support would certainly be helpful, but it's always hard to get that anywhere near right (and for the relevant institutions (and/or alternative support-mechanisms, like tax breaks) to maintain a reasonable objectivity).