Salonaz Sami tunes in to an amazing blend of sounds

The popularity of Alaa El-Aswani's Imarat Yaqoubian (The Yaqoubian Building), now a major film starring Adel Imam and Nour El-Sherif, has spurred a cottage industry in Downtown-based fiction writing. Over the past five years a flurry of novels portraying the elusive Downtown world has found its way into print, writes Sayed Mahmoud