ONE of Africa's biggest book fairs has come not a moment too soon for authors like Noha Mahmud. The up-and-coming Egyptian author is one of many who struggled to earn a living during the COVID-19 pandemic which devastated Egypt's publishing and book sales industry. As difficult periods go for writers, the last one-and-a-half years have been as tough as they come, for Noha Mahmud, an Egyptian writer in her late 30's. "Publishers stopped buying the literary production of almost all writers," Mahmud said in an interview. "The publishing industry as a whole came to a standstill and with it the…