A novel of life in the mixed culture that existed in Southern Spain before the expulsion of Arabs and Jews, following the life of Abu Jaafar, the bookbinder, and his family as they witness Christopher Columbus’ triumphant parade through the streets.
In the Koran, there are 99 names for God. Does the 100th exist? Months before the dawn of the apocalyptic “year of the beast”, 1666, Balthasar Embriaco, a Genoese Levantine merchant embarks on a quest to find the answer. He sets out on a journey that will take him across the breadth of the civilized […]
In his tranquil middle-class neighbourhood, eighteen-year-old Hisham doesn’t quite fit in. He’s a budding philosopher who spends his days reading banned books and developing his political ideals. His Saudi Arabia is a nation embroiled in internal conflict, torn between ancient tradition and newfound prosperity. Hisham finds himself caught up in the struggle for change, devoting […]
With its overlapping narratives, Over the Bridge is a subtle critique of governmental ineptness, economic and social injustice, and individual moral failings. In Mohamed El-Bisatie’s hands, the human drive to create, and to control one’s own and others’ destinies, is invariably turned on its head, while attempts to do good frequently end up causing harm […]
An “Arabian Nights” in reverse, enclosing a moral about international misconceptions and delusions. This is the story of a student who returns to his village after his obsession with the West had led him to London and the beds of women with similar obsessions about the mysterious East.
Clamor of the Lake begins with the appearance of an old fisherman of unknown origin sailing a black boat. Taciturn and enigmatic, he takes on a woman and her twin boys. Meanwhile, in a nearby village by the lake, Gomaa and his wife have found respite from the dreariness of their existence in the fantastic […]
This sweeping novel depicts the intertwined lives of an assortment of Egyptians—Muslims and Copts, northerners and southerners, men and women—as they begin to settle in Egypt’s great second city, and explores how the Second World War, starting in supposedly faraway Europe, comes crashing down on them, affecting their lives in fateful ways.
Cairo, January 1952. Egypt is at a critical point in its modern history, struggling to throw off the yoke of the seventy-year British occupation and its corrupt royalist allies. Hamza is a committed young radical, his goal to build a secret armed brigade to fight for freedom, independence, and national self-esteem. Fawziya is a woman […]
This unusual and much lauded novel tells the story of the life of an Egyptian woman – the eponymous Zaat – during the regimes of three Egyptian presidents: Abdel Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak. Imbued with an Egyptian sense of humor and deeply rooted in the culture and politics of the modern period, the novel takes […]