Erstellt am: 7. 9. 2011 - 14:18 Uhr

The Superior Egyptian Gene

Karim El Gawhary's book 'Tagebuch der Arabischen Revolution' has just been published and it's a major page-turner.

I know I'm going to catch some stick for this but I'm going to declare it anyways: Egyptians are the best storytellers in the world.

EPA

We have had 7 thousand years of practice afterall

Writing on the Wall

I come from an Egyptian family of writers. My cousin Rehab is a best-selling author and she has a huge following on her blog. Uncle Ahmad has spent a considerable amount of time in Cairo's infamous Tora prison for not mincing words when it comes to criticing past Egyptian regimes. Uncle Ahmad is the Chief Editor of Dar Alkhaleej and is often on Egyptian TV where his particular brand of delivering a comment is much-loved by most Egyptians... I always have to giggle when I see him talking about serious issues because I know how much he enjoys twisting his face into the truly silliest expressions EVER when he's telling me a story or a joke.

My cousin-by-osmosis Abdel-Rahman Hussein has magically managed to surpass my skills as a wordsmith IN ENGLISH (not his mother-tongue) and has contributed to numerous publications around the world including the very popular American Huffington Post.

Sarah Carr

Outside the 'blood- family', I've already told you about my dearly departed, 'literary' grandfather, who was, for me, the MASTER of the Egyptian story--a storyteller who is unmatched when it comes to sheer simplistic beauty in writing: Naguib Mahfouz.

Karim El Gawhary

Okay. So I've just listed a bunch of Egyptian writers who I admire and respect but here's where my completely unscientifically proven theory about a superior Egyptian gene when it comes to storytelling gets some legs: every single Halfsie I know (half-Egyptian, half-something else) is an amazing writer.
Sarah Carr's blog has kept me in stitches while provoking serious thought during the past few months. Sammy Khamis has been providing FM4 with true prose since January 25th of this year when he found himself caught up in an unforgetable moment in history. And then there's Karim El Gawhary.

You may have seen him on TV. You may have heard him on FM4. Chances are you've read his words on any number of news and commentary publications in print or online.
Karim El Gawhary, a German-Egyptian journalist and the head of the ORF's Cairo Bureau, hasn't only been covering the revolutions of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya the past few months, he has astoundingly also written a book which has just been published.

Tagebuch der Arabischen Revolution is a collection of blog entries, transcriptions of appearances on various news shows and deliciously told observations of not only a fantastic journalist, but also of an Egyptian-German and a father of three children.

Karim was in the FM4 studio earlier today and as always, it was great to catch up with him, both personally and professionally. Mainly though, it's always a pleasure to be in his company because he has the superior Egyptian gene.