Poetry is not only a set of words which are chosen to relate to each other; it is something which goes much further than that to provide a glimpse of our vision of the world.

Egypt has suffered more ordeals than the other countries to get where it is.

What have we achieved since the end of the Second World War? We have allowed petty, bourgeois regimes in which everything is average, mediocre.

At 21, I discovered repression and injustice. The army would shoot students with real bullets.

My hope is that countries like Morocco will have investment to create work, so people don't have to leave.

We have no Arab intellectuals of international stature because we live in a state of generalized mediocrity. We are suspended in the pit without touching the bottom.

I belong to a specific category of writers, those who speak and write in a language different from that of their parents.