My characters are driven by a passionate desire for justice. They are rebellious and incorruptible.

People must insist on the right to say no, to be alone, to stand out from the herd. Creative artists can say all this in their own way and in their own field, by hard, rigorous work.

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

Religion has to stay in the heart, not in politics. It is private.

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

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

I have written about the dispossessed, immigrants, the condition of women who do not enjoy the same legal rights as men, the Palestinians who are deprived of their land and condemned to exile.