His characters are rich and varied, from down-at-heel aristocrats to pious young scholars, from the poorest of squatters who live on the roof of the Yacoubian apartment house to the gay intellectuals downstairs.

More than any Arab writer since Naguib Nahfouz, Aswany makes modern Arab society accessible and familiar to Western readers.

And so it was remarkable when Aswany hailed a new study of modern Egypt by a Western writer as brave and essential."

Arabs rightly bemoan the West's lack of understanding of their societies. As the late Edward Said suggested in "Orientalism,"' even the West's so-called experts, including its scholars as well as its policy-makers, have a long history of misunderstanding and re-inventing the Middle East for their own purposes.

So Aswany's praise for John R. Bradley's latest book, "Inside Egypt: The Land of the Pharaohs on the Brink of a Revolution." (Palgrave Macmillan) should be taken seriously.

Bradley, a British journalist who was managing editor of Arab News in Saudi Arabia, speaks fluent Egyptian Arabic and lives in Egypt. His last book, "Saudi Arabia Exposed," was the most original and informative book on the desert monarchy to have appeared in years.

His new book on Egypt has already caused a stir in Cairo, with interviews and assessments in the Egyptian media, not least because he seeks to debunk the widespread view of the importance of the Muslim Brotherhood.

"The popularity of the Brotherhood is a myth. It is exaggerated by the group's own propaganda machine, for obvious reasons, but also by the [President Hosni] Mubarak regime, which plays up the Islamist 'threat' in order to deflect pressure from Washington to introduce reforms," Bradley suggests.

In Egypt's 2005 elections, the strong showing by the Brotherhood – they won 88 of the 454 seats – triggered a flood of papers by Middle East analysts calling for more Western engagement with the group. But this apparent triumph was a mirage. The Brotherhood won 20 percent of the seats, but at most 25 percent of Egyptians voted.

Even accepting the official turnout figures, the Brotherhood could only muster the support of a small minority of the voting-age population, despite polls indicating that the overwhelming majority was deeply dissatisfied with the regime's performance.

Bradley points out that the Islamic Brotherhood has few roots in the mass of the population, whose preferred form of worship is far more relaxed and ecumenical and even joyful. The puritanical Islamism of the Brothers seeks to suppress the hugely popular moulid festivals and the Sufism which has such strong roots in Egypt.

But Bradley notes that in the aftermath of the Mubarak regime, the Brotherhood may be the only political organization left standing to pick up the pieces. Aswany's novels suggest Bradley may be right.