El Attar wrote The Committee in 1998. He was working as Director of Foreign Relations at the Cultural Development Fund under the mandate of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture. El Attar documented the search for a director of public relations at the Ministry of Culture in Cairo. The job required that the applicants speak one foreign language, but the interviews proved futile, and the applicants desperate. The Committee is an attempt to explore the dynamics of this desperation and the different elements that shape it.