Officials from the Libyan embassy attended the first reading I gave from my first novel. A report was sent to Tripoli and I became a watched man. It was deemed no longer safe for me to visit my family in Egypt, which caused a second exile. When friends or relatives visited London, many did not feel it was prudent to be seen with me. Every time I gave an interview criticizing the dictatorship, I walked around for days feeling the weight of the regime on my back.
