I was working at the magazine as a fact-checker and my parents no longer considered me a failure, not because they read or admired it, but because when they said its name to friends and relatives it sparkled on their tongues.

I saw myself studying law in order to please my father. For comfort, I secretly disappeared into song. And finally, when a choice had to be made, I grew tormented. But my spirit won out in the end.

People at protests are shot as fondly — as ravenously — as a nude, while nudes appear monumental, as if desire itself were a front-page story.

‘How dare you interrupt my shoot! Can’t you see these extras have killed me for two hours? I was rehearsing with them for two hours, and now you come and interrupt? This is the best film in the Middle East!’

Not from the pensive, personable face she’d always imagined but from the thick bovine features of a bald troll.

Alaa was effervescent — jumping around, waving his arms, protesting with his whole body.