Alaa Al Aswany: The Republic of False Truths

There's a growing culture war over history with efforts throughout western nations to revert to "virtuous origin" stories. IDEAS explores what happens when we sanitize history and remove criticism and doubt from the myth. If we kill history, how can we look to the future? 

Twenty-five years ago, reality TV exploded in popularity, and the media panicked. But could shows like Love Is Blind and their like actually help make us more media literate? IDEAS examines the culture, morality, and philosophy of unscripted television. 

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe talks to the Egyptian writer Alaa Al Aswany about his latest novel which charts the country's social upheaval through the prism of Cairo's elite Automobile Club of Egypt. The foreign correspondent Wendell Steavenson looks back at the Egyptian re ...

Harriett Gilbert talks to acclaimed Egyptian writer Alaa Al-Aswany about his bestselling novel The Yacoubian Building. It was the Arab world’s number-one bestseller for five years running after it was published in 2002. The Yacoubian Building interweaves the stories of a group of ...  Afficher plus

* We apologise for the abrupt ending of this podcast. The last few minutes of the recording were corrupted. Speaker: Adel Iskandar, Simon Fraser University Seven years since the popular uprising that shook Egypt, the relationships between state, society, social movements and corp ...  Afficher plus

At this crucial moment in Egypt’s story, this month’s World Book Club talks to one of the country’s great writers, Ahdaf Soueif, about her internationally acclaimed novel The Map of Love.In her Booker-shortlisted bestseller Soueif weaves together two poignant stories separated by ...  Afficher plus