The Dictatorship Syndrome

Alaa Al Aswany

Dec 2019 · Haus Publishing

About this ebook

The study of dictatorship in the West has acquired an almost exotic dimension. But authoritarian regimes remain a painful reality for billions of people worldwide who still live under them, their freedoms violated and their rights abused. They are subject to arbitrary arrest, torture, corruption, ignorance, and injustice. What is the nature of dictatorship? How does it take hold? In what conditions and circumstances is it permitted to thrive? And how do dictators retain power, even when reviled and mocked by those they govern? In this deeply considered and at times provocative short work, Alaa Al Aswany tells us that, as with any disease, to understand the syndrome of dictatorship we must first consider the circumstances of its emergence, along with the symptoms and complications it causes in both the people and the dictator.

About the author

Alaa Al Aswany's The Yacoubian Building was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award (IMPAC) in 2006 and has sold over a million copies worldwide. His work has been translated into twenty-nine languages and published in over a hundred countries. Al Aswany was named by The Times as one of the fifty best authors to have been translated into English in the last fifty years.