“Through the power of his imaginative black magic, [Hamdy el-Gazzar] resurrects slumbering art forms with a skill rarely seen in a young writer.” -Salah Fadl, Al-Ahram “A new vision in narrative writing … A novel of such elegance and intimacy is to be truly saluted.” -Mahmud Qurani, al-Quds al-‘Arabi

Hamdy el-Gazzar was born in 1970 in Cairo and graduated in philosophy from Cairo University. Since 1990 he has published several short stories and articles in the Arabic press, as well as writing and directing three plays. His first novel, Black Magic, received the 2006 Sawiris Foundation Prize in Egyptian Literature. Humphrey Davies is the translator of Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz (AUC Press, 2011) and other works of Arabic literature. He has twice received the Saif Ghobash – Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation: in 2006, for his translation of Elias Khoury’s Gate of the Sun, and in 2010, for his translation of Elias Khoury’s Yalo. He was also the runner-up in 2012 for his translation of I Was Born There, I Was Born Here by Mourid Barghouti (AUC Press, 2011).