I met Hanan al Shaykh only once: heard her speak at MIT in Cambridge. I was disappointed. Her comments on her novel The Story of Zahra were superficial and left you wondering if Foucault was right about the death of the author business. How else can you explain a text that is deeper than its author? She was eager to announce she was not a feminist despite the efforts of American reviewers and academics to feministicize her. Judging by this, she doesn't seem to have changed much. One interesting bit of gossip: she had an affair with the Egyptian writer Ihsan Abdul Quddous. Humm. This may explain some things--such as the sensationalism and voyerism in her work.
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She was actually born and raised in the same neighborhood as myself-temprally separated from me, though.
She's a good writer, though. Ihsan 'al-banat wal Sayf' Quddous, on the other hand, is good in his own, other, ways. You have to admit that reading his stories is a guilty pleasure we've all indulged in. He wrote, that Nadia Lutfi (Allah Ytawwil 3omra) may act.
sure I admit that as teenagers we enjoyed his novels, and the sex and voyerism was one big reason why. I still remember the summer I read Nadia; I cried a bucket when Muna died. But I also remember not being happy with the moralizing of Ana Hurra or Al Nathara Al Sawda. Nadia Lutfi was gorgeious in that and she had to be humiliated for it. I hated it.
correction: gorgeous
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