SOURCE: Allen, Roger. “Arabic Fiction and the Quest for Freedom.” Journal of Arabic Literature 26, no. 1-2 (March-June 1995): 37-49.

In the following essay, Allen compares the religious and political censorship of Arabic literature to the censorship of Western literature, discussing the treatment of writers in Arabic-speaking countries and how writers of Arabic literature confront and resist censorship in their work.

I laugh in the dark, I cry in the dark; in the dark I also write till I no longer distinguish pen from finger. Every knock at the door, every rustle of the curtain, I cover my papers with my hand like a cheap tart in a police raid. From whom have I inherited this error, this blood as skittish as the mountain panther? No sooner do I spot an official form on the threshold or a helmet through a crack in the door than my bones and tears...