.... But Kamel Daoud has now announced to the world that he is giving up his newspaper work, and will focus on fiction.
Why? Because of the frenzied reaction to a piece he wrote in Le Monde concerning New Year's Eve in Cologne.
The article in question - entitled "Cologne - City of Illusions" - was a two-pronged attack on the cliches triggered by the mass molestations of women.
On the one hand Daoud deplored the far-right "illusion" which treats all immigrants as potential rapists.
But by far the greater part of his anger was directed at the "naive" political left, who in his view deliberately ignore the cultural gulf separating the Arab-Muslim world from Europe.
Thus, according to Daoud, Europe welcomes immigrants with visas and material sustenance - but without addressing what really counts, which is the world of values.
What Cologne showed, says Daoud, is how sex is "the greatest misery in the world of Allah". [BBC] Read more
