The Death of Reason

I was sad to hear the news of Naguib Mahfouz's passing today. Sad is the word here, not disconsolate, not distraught, not depressed. The man was 94 years old - he'd lived life and lived it again. A brilliant storyteller, Mahfouz once had a fatwa put on him because he had written something said to be blasphemous. He was also stabbed by an Izzy Fundy.

Mahfouz was leftover from a Cairo that is dead, a Cairo that once was cosmopolitan and liberally cool. He was a voice of reason in an increasingly religious nutcase world, telling stories in a very poignant manner, not hiding anything. He wrote what he saw. He wrote truth.

But he criticized American foreign policy, and he's an Arab, so he must be a terrorist.