Letter to the New Statesman, 20/4/08
Dear Editor,
I read Rachel Aspden's excellent article ('Written
in the Sand', NS, 17/4/08), on the deformations, vicissitudes and
inequalities of the Arab literary world and its glitzy, elitist
accolades, with great interest. As the proverbial, 'acclaimed,
award-winning, ground-breaking' novelist whose work has appeared in
national newspapers, been taught at universities and been translated
into foreign tongues, l feel it incumbent upon me to disabuse readers
of the cosy notion that the English book world likewise is not in bed
with - and indeed, a product of - class, corporate, metropolitan and
ethnic power. I'm surprised actually that I am even capable of writing
these lines, since I am Muslim, male, middle-aged, of Pakistani origin,
live 400 miles from London and didn't go to private school or Oxbridge
- and as I've just come off a 17-hour shift at my "second job". Why
shouldn't the Gulf emulate England and revel in the grandiosity of its
very own incestuous complacencies? At least in the Arab world, there are no illusions.
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