With his navy suit, tinted glasses and pinstriped shirt covering a middle-aged paunch, it is easy to imagine Dr Ahmed Khaled Towfik writing prescriptions or prowling before a pack of students in a lecture theatre.
It takes a greater leap of imagination to envisage this mild-mannered professor of tropical diseases as the voice of Arab youth, giving them an exhilarating sense of escapism with his horror and thriller novellas.
But Towfik is something of a hero in his native Egypt and one of the most prolific Arab writers of his time, churning out more than 500 titles and writing up to 22 books a year while holding down a full-time job at the university in Tanta, the city where he was born.
He was the first Arab writer to pen horror and science fiction thrillers. Many of his stories are set in Egypt with a cast of characters who have developed a cult following, such as the semi-autobiographical doctor Refaat Ismael in his Ma Waraa al Tabiaa series.
His books have inspired a younger generation of writers who grew up on a diet of his tales and are now following in his footsteps by writing their own, such as Ahmed Mourad, the author of Vertigo.
Now though, Towfik is in danger of being left behind. Aged 49 and more than a year on from the revolution in Egypt - an uprising dubbed "Revolution 2.0" by its protagonists, a reference to the central role the internet and social media played in the movement - he admits he has little patience for Facebook and Twitter and has no intention of using them to reach out to a new breed of followers.
"Even my own two children prefer Facebook to reading my books," he says ruefully. "I am too old for it though. I have four Facebook sites dedicated to me, but I don't know how to use it myself."
In Dubai for the annual Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, he admits he has yet to write a new work focusing on Egypt's seismic changes: "We are not a country yet and change is still happening. We need time for digestion. If I write about it now, it would be like regurgitating.
"I feel it is wrong to write literature about the revolution now. Nothing is sharp any more, so I am sticking to writing political articles and horror books for youth until things settle down."
Yet visions of a horrific future have been plaguing Towfik for some time and in Utopia, his first and only adult fiction, written in 2007, he imagines an Egyptian society living in cosseted wealth in gated enclaves in 2023, without rules or morals and eventually driven by boredom to hunt their impoverished compatriots who live beyond the gates for sport.
Tellingly, he writes in the foreword: "The Utopia mentioned here is an imaginary place ... even though the author knows for certain that this place will exist soon."
The revolt of the poorer classes may not have happened as he predicted but, he says, his grim vision serves as a warning: "I imagined a lot of classes would revolt and there would be chaos everywhere.
"It is our good luck that did not happen, but I sometimes feel very pessimistic about the future. I feel civil war is inevitable in Egypt and that Christians will separate to make their own communities. So in my writing, I have gone back to horror. It is escapism from the real horror."
The son of a cotton trader and a university secretary, Towfik first started writing adventure stories and thrillers at the age of 10.
His father owned a vast library and, unusually for an Egyptian teenager, Towfik began devouring British, American and Russian classics from the likes of Somerset Maugham, Mark Twain, Chekhov and Tolstoy, a dictionary at hand when he stumbled over the language.
His love of the classics has imbued his spoken English with formal Victorian quirks rather than the colloquial language of the street.
"My father was a very literate man and most of the family income was spent on books," says Towfik.
"My English was not good enough to read horror literature so I started writing it myself. You write to keep your mental stability."
Writing full time was never a career option. Like his peers, the dentist Alaa al Aswany who wrote The Yacoubian Building, and Yusuf Idris, the late doctor-cum-playwright, he could only contemplate writing as a hobby as the potential earnings would not be enough to live on.
Instead, he studied medicine at Tanta University before embarking on a doctorate in tropical diseases, then becoming a lecturer at the same institution and graduating to the role of professor in 2008.
He was 32 before he published any of the work he had been stashing away.
"I had been writing secretly for myself the whole time and reached saturation point," he says. "I realised I had to face society. I was getting old and thought, it is now or never.
"Every writer has close friends who tell him he is a genius but I did not trust them. A cow must be milked or it will run dry."
He sent five manuscripts to a publisher, including the first instalments in his Ma Waraa al Tabiaa series called The Vampire and The Legend of the Werewolf.
The novellas, each about 16,000 words long, found an audience in teenagers hungry for fresh material and a thrilling plotline, and Towfik began writing for up to three hours a day.
In his Fantasia series, he interwove the storyline with references to the literary works he so admired, introducing an Arab audience to the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle and Dostoevsky - although he did so subtly because, he says, no one likes a preacher. "The youth see me as an educator, not just a writer," he says. "I am very proud of this role. I feel like a father to them. They made my name and they are hungry to read. Every day a man gets darker inside but youth are essentially white. They have not been stained by society.
"I do not broadcast messages because that is like writing an article. You have to read between the lines of my work but many of my readers said my ideas made them go to Tahrir Square during the revolution.
"I feel a responsibility for them but ultimately, I just try to be an entertainer."
His medical background gave him a unique peg, with much of his knowledge finding its way onto the page.
"I add in some psychology and some general knowledge," says Towfik. "Medicine gives me a great source of material.
"You study human beings at their weakest point. As a doctor you meet everyone from a minister to a rich man, crying because they are afraid of dying."
Indeed, as Towfik points out, Maugham - who spent five years studying medicine - once said the experience was an inspiration because "I saw how men died. I saw how they bore pain. I saw what hope looked like."
While Maugham never had to work as a doctor, Towfik has been denied that luxury. Even as one of the highest-paid authors in the Arab world, he still needs to work full-time to earn a living, but says he is as passionate about medicine as he is about writing.
"I prefer," he says, "to be a doctor who happens to write."
How much do leading UAE’s UK curriculum schools charge for Year 6?
- Nord Anglia International School (Dubai) – Dh85,032
- Kings School Al Barsha (Dubai) – Dh71,905
- Brighton College Abu Dhabi - Dh68,560
- Jumeirah English Speaking School (Dubai) – Dh59,728
- Gems Wellington International School – Dubai Branch – Dh58,488
- The British School Al Khubairat (Abu Dhabi) - Dh54,170
- Dubai English Speaking School – Dh51,269
*Annual tuition fees covering the 2024/2025 academic year
Company%C2%A0profile
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The biog
Name: Dhabia Khalifa AlQubaisi
Age: 23
How she spends spare time: Playing with cats at the clinic and feeding them
Inspiration: My father. He’s a hard working man who has been through a lot to provide us with everything we need
Favourite book: Attitude, emotions and the psychology of cats by Dr Nicholes Dodman
Favourit film: 101 Dalmatians - it remind me of my childhood and began my love of dogs
Word of advice: By being patient, good things will come and by staying positive you’ll have the will to continue to love what you're doing
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
More from Neighbourhood Watch
The biog
Simon Nadim has completed 7,000 dives.
The hardest dive in the UAE is the German U-boat 110m down off the Fujairah coast.
As a child, he loved the documentaries of Jacques Cousteau
He also led a team that discovered the long-lost portion of the Ines oil tanker.
If you are interested in diving, he runs the XR Hub Dive Centre in Fujairah
The%20specs%20
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
The%20specs
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The specs: 2018 Ford Mustang GT
Price, base / as tested: Dh204,750 / Dh241,500
Engine: 5.0-litre V8
Gearbox: 10-speed automatic
Power: 460hp @ 7,000rpm
Torque: 569Nm @ 4,600rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 10.3L / 100km
RESULTS
Light Flyweight (48kg): Alua Balkibekova (KAZ) beat Gulasal Sultonalieva (UZB) by points 4-1.
Flyweight (51kg): Nazym Kyzaibay (KAZ) beat Mary Kom (IND) 3-2.
Bantamweight (54kg): Dina Zholaman (KAZ) beat Sitora Shogdarova (UZB) 3-2.
Featherweight (57kg): Sitora Turdibekova (UZB) beat Vladislava Kukhta (KAZ) 5-0.
Lightweight (60kg): Rimma Volossenko (KAZ) beat Huswatun Hasanah (INA) KO round-1.
Light Welterweight (64kg): Milana Safronova (KAZ) beat Lalbuatsaihi (IND) 3-2.
Welterweight (69kg): Valentina Khalzova (KAZ) beat Navbakhor Khamidova (UZB) 5-0
Middleweight (75kg): Pooja Rani (IND) beat Mavluda Movlonova (UZB) 5-0.
Light Heavyweight (81kg): Farida Sholtay (KAZ) beat Ruzmetova Sokhiba (UZB) 5-0.
Heavyweight (81 kg): Lazzat Kungeibayeva (KAZ) beat Anupama (IND) 3-2.
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Uefa Nations League
League A:
Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, France, England, Switzerland, Italy, Poland, Iceland, Croatia, Netherlands
League B:
Austria, Wales, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Ukraine, Republic of Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Northern Ireland, Denmark, Czech Republic, Turkey
League C:
Hungary, Romania, Scotland, Slovenia, Greece, Serbia, Albania, Norway, Montenegro, Israel, Bulgaria, Finland, Cyprus, Estonia, Lithuania
League D:
Azerbaijan, Macedonia, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Latvia, Faroe Islands, Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Liechtenstein, Malta, Andorra, Kosovo, San Marino, Gibraltar
Brief scoreline:
Tottenham 1
Son 78'
Manchester City 0
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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UAE%20FIXTURES
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The years Ramadan fell in May
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills