An interesting novel about a young writer on a trip to Egypt with a Swiss writer who becomes increasingly frustrated, sexually & culturally. On his return the Swiss writer writes a critique of islam & is murdered for it, similar to Theo van Gogh. It is a serious meditation on western views of islam, & the tendency to misdiagnose islamic societies with our own ills. But ultimately it is an urgent plea for the right to criticise, and by extension the right for fiction to exist. ( )