Early stories he remembers are those of Kamel al-Kilani (the Egyptian pioneer of modern children’s literature) but Selmi attributes his love of stories less to his early consumption of the written word and more to oral stories shared “beneath the olive tree known as ‘The Dog.’”

“In the beginning, they would not allow youngesters to approach the place, particularly because the men occasionally told risque stories and discussed topics they considered unsuitable for the minds of young people like us.”

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