HARDtalk - Alaa Al-Aswany

Can storytellers play a key role in a country's struggle for democracy? Alaa Al-Aswany believes that they can. His novel The Yacoubian Building is a scathing portrayal of life in modern Egypt which became an international bestseller and also a film, while his latest novel Chicago has sold more than 120,000 copies in Arabic. Al-Aswany believes that writers have a responsibility towards the society they live in. Sarah Montague asks him about political themes in his writing and why he believes change in the Arab world needs to start in his country.