What is it like, in post-Tahrir Cairo, to run a bookstore or a publishing house? What is it like to be a reader or a writer?

For Poets & Writers, Stephen Morison, Jr., writes about the Egyptian revolution from a literary angle.

“A critic last Monday said he wanted to kill himself [after reading my latest novel]. He asked, ‘Why is it so depressing?’” the writer says while sipping his tea and smoking a Pharaoh-brand cigarette. “He said that I am a good writer, but in this book, I made the art dirty. He said I have to respect the religion more than this.”