A Writer's Writer

BRENDAN MACNEILL

TIGER, TIGER: For almost 15 years from her home in Scotland, Erdal wrote everything from novels and articles to love letters for her publishing boss Attallah.

Four years ago, a London-based, Palestine-born publisher named Naim Attallah sent an overheated love letter to his wife. "The fire in my soul still burns as brightly as the moment I first looked upon you," it said, going on to cite Socrates, God and Philip Larkin. "When I think of you, there is no single name for what I feel, more a constant singing in my heart." But Attallah didn't write the letter — nor the 12 books; the hundreds of newspaper columns and magazine articles; or the countless other missives, from business letters to thank-you notes, that bore his name....

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