LEADING ANALYST and writer Mohamed Hassanein Heikal celebrates his 80th birthday this week. For over 60 years Heikal has been one of the most influential journalists in the Arab world. Editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram from 1957 to 1974, he has written over 50 highly regarded books on Egypt and Middle Eastern politics, many of them translated into several languages.

Following the 1952 Revolution his name was closely associated with that of Gamal Abdel-Nasser, and he served as his minister of information and foreign affairs in 1970. He also had a close, if more complex and volatile, relationship with Anwar El-Sadat, by whom he was imprisoned in 1981.

On the occasion of his 80th birthday there were suggestions that Heikal had decided to abandon writing: the immediate uproar provoked by the news clearly suggests that for many an Arab press without Heikal would just not be the same.