AT readers expect harassment over ‘Children of the Alley’

35.8 per cent of ‘Arabstoday’ readers expect that Egyptian director Khaled Youssef will be harassed by the political Islamist movements for making a film out of Naguib Mahfouz’s novel ‘Children of the Alley’, according to a poll on the website’s entertainment page. 19.4 per cent believe that Khaled Youssef will “prove freedom of creativity”, 18.5 per cent believe the film will be censored, whereas 14.7 per cent of the readers expect that Islamists would not allow Khaled Youssef to go on with his film project. Youssef confirmed the news on transforming the famous novel to a movie, saying: “I’m not an infidel… and the novel does criticise any divine entity, otherwise Al-Azhar would have confiscated its issues from all libraries.” Youssef stressed his rejection of resorting to Al-Azhar or the Council of Senior Scholars in evaluating art, saying art critics do so with professionalism and objectivity. He pointed out that awareness and opinion of people and the society are the conscience of the creator of art, as art is presented to them and they alone can either accept it or reject it. He added that artists will resist the Islamist movements if they try to rule with autocracy like the previous regime. Khaled Youssef revealed his intention to turn ‘Children of the Alley’ from paper to the screen, in defence of the late international writer and Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz, whose works are currently under attack by some extremists, according to Youssef. Salafist Abdel Monoem Shahat called Mahfouz’s novels “an incitement for vice.”