Autumn Quail by Naguib Mahfouz

Autumn Quail by Naguib Mahfouz

Egyptian literature

Original title –  السمان والخريف

Translator – Roger Allen and revised by John Rodenbeck

Source – personal copy

When I looked at the list of books that came out in 1962, I did a deep dive and this is one that caught my eye as I’ve had the Cario trilogy sitting on my shelves for years, and I have reviewed another book by the Nobel winning Mahfouz a few years ago for the 1077 club. It also reminds me I have the Cario trilogy sitting there to read at some point. Mahfouz was the voice of his nation he wrote about the changes in his country over the 20th century. He rarely talks about his private life, marrying late in middle age, and he rarely travelled this book harks back to the Nasser regime and to 1952 written ten years after that. Even the main character in the book, ISA is an early casualty of the new regime.

But what was going on in Cairo?

There was no car to take him anywhere. In the station square, people were walking in every direction, anger on their faces, heaping curses on the British. It was cold. The sky was hidden by ominous clouds; the wind was still and lifeless. Shops were closed as if for mourning, and thick smoke rose along on the skyline.

What was going on in Cairo?

Cautiously, he began to walk, then beckoned to a man coming toward him. “What’s going on in town?” he asked.

“The last day’s come,” was the bewildered reply.

“What do you mean? Protest demonstrations?”

“Fire and destruction,” the man yelled, moving on.

From the seonc pages as Nasser moves in on Cario

 

 

Isa was a civil servant in the old regime, and he was climbing the ladder, but how was he doing that? before Nasser took over from the monarchy in Egypt. The book opens as Cario is burning as Nasser sweeps to power  He is, as he says many times in the book he is caught between the two, looking back but knowing things had to change but not wanting to be part of that. So he loses his job as he likes to take bribes and is wiped out by the change in regime. He refuses to tow the new line and is, in a way, an outcast. Alongside this, he is losing his fiance Salwa to his cousin Hasan a man who is part of the new Nasser regime. This is also like by her family as they’d p[refer her to Marry the Man on the Rise. He marries a woman who is unable to give him a child, but they have money, and this means he can live in the past in a way that he then meets and sleeps with a prostitute and gets her pregnant. This is a busy work

Hasan Ali ad-Dabbagh came in beaming. Of medium height, well built, with a square face and deep-lined features, he had a broad chin, and his clear intelligent eyes and sharp-pointed nose were very distinctive. He kissed his aunt’s hand, shook Isa’s warmly without managing to lessen the latter’s feelings of annoyance, then sat down beside him and asked for some tea. He was almost the same age as Isa but was still in the fifth grade, whereas politics had managed to push Isa up to the second. Though he had a bachelor’s degree in com-merce, the only work he’d been able to find was with the draft board.

“How are you?” Isa’s mother asked.

“I’m fine,” Hasan replied, “and my mother and sister are well too.”

Hssan maybe he embodies the new ideals ?

I feel this is a book that is maybe the exception to what we say about books. It could have been 100 pages longer. There is so much crammed in the story of Isa, but there is also so much chatting and commentary of the events of that time and how it affected people like Isa when Nasser swept to power. There is a sense of Mahfouz wanting to say so much about those years that followed and that maybe makes the later part of the book seem to drift the plot and drive we see early on as the violence sweeps Cario has died down and the book maybe tries to do to much in a short space if that makes sense. I loved the first third of this book. It really works, but then he seems to get distracted by talking about what happened rather than mixing it up with the plot. He is best when the plot and what is being said move; the later part of this felt like him unloading his feelings in the characters. But This is one of three books he wrote about those years I must try The Others at some point. Have you read Mahfouz? This is the first of my Club1962 choices

Winston’s score – is B great start, but the later section of the book is just too much about talking about what happened in a way.

Leaves of Narcissus by Somaya Ramadan

Leaves of Narcissus by Somaya Ramadan

Egyptian fiction

Original title – Awraq Al-Nargis

Translator – Marilyn Booth

Source – personal copy

I was drawn to this book when I ordered it a couple of years ago as it had the mention of Ireland in the description and would be the second Egyptian novel that had been set in Ireland I had read Temple Bar by Bahaa Abdelmegid and felt this would give a female perspective on the same experience of leaving Egypt to study abroad. Somaya Ramadan herself had spent time in Egypt studying English and then she studied in the early 1980s in Dublin she went to trinity college which I  feel maybe where she drew inspiration for this book that also follows a female student from Egypt as she heads to Ireland to study and start a new life there. she had written a couple of short story collections before this novel came out. This novel won the Naguib Mahfouz medal when it came out.

I walked in the direction of my lodging, across from the train station, and fished out my keys, ignoring the source of that invasive scream. The noise that had now subsided distilled a single, terrifying insight: that what I live is not the condition which other human beings live. That my senses and my comprehension of life are not those of anyone else, of anyone else but me. Something very alarming was beginning to weave itself together there in front of me, slowly, growing to giant proportions as it came ever nearer, a fearsome cold tidal wave edging toward me to swallow me completely to bring darkness over all to bring stillness.

The arrival in Dublin of Kimi the sense of being overwhelmed is here

The book follows Kimi a sensitive woman that has the ability to feel the emotions of those around her and she is about to head to Ireland to study. This is the start of the book and it deals with the usual clash of cultures that a move like this can bring a person to the edge as she struggles to fit in the style of the narrative of Kimi and the world is a nod to Joyce we see her inner working as she settles into her lodgings at Westland row in Dublin as she walks a tightrope as she struggles with her mental health as the move is overwhelming to her as she is a fragile soul as her world and the lit world she is studying at times almost touch and blur as she tries to fit in an exile in a country with its own selection of exiles this is a classic slice of culture clash and also a nod to classic modernist writing.

The map of exile fixed to the wall was not a yearning for the homeland. There was no exile. All there was, in that place, was another homeland, another nation. A nation inhabited by its own images, its own brands of hypocrisy, its own deliberate silences and its own pretense, that it alone existed and that anything east of London or west of Boston had no real place in the calculations of geography. These were unknown reaches, better left unknown. The only condition was silence and the pretense that here was all there was

As I say being an exile is a theme in the book as both countries have had so many over the years.

Ramadan herself is also a translator of English books into Arabic, you can see the influence of that on this as one of the writers she has translated like  Virginia Woolf into Arabic. Kimi is like a Woolf character that fragile line between being there and losing one’s mind in the world she is in. That Woolf did so well in her books. It is also a classic look at culture clash and being a fish out of water. But alongside this is the culture clash of Kimi in a new country and studying there as well. There is a nod to the common ground of Egypt and Ireland being in countries with many exiles and being an exile from your own country in that country that has a lot of exiles in. This is like a Rachel from a voyage out or later characters from the waves had stepped out of a Woolf novel and become Egyptian in Dublin this is a fragile woman in a new world and has a wonderful amount of lit quotes it is easy to see how in love the writer is with English literature with a sprinkling of quotes here and there in the book. I said this is a perfect companion piece to Temple Bar another fish out of water this has a female take on that experience. Have you read this or any other AUC(AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CARIO)  books?

Winstons score – A – A lost modern gem of Arabic writing about being an outsider in Ireland

Memoirs of a Woman doctor by Nawal El Saadawi

Memoirs of a Woman Doctor by Nawal El Saadawi

Egyptian fiction

Original title – ” مذكرات طبيبة

Translator – Catherine Cobham

Source – review copy

I decided to take a detour from the Booker list and I had read this when I was sent it and never got to it which is a shame as I really enjoyed it and I admire Nawal as a person called the Simone De Beauvoir of the Arabic world she has long been a champion of women in the Arabic world. former movements for both female rights and human rights within the Arabic world. She was also a doctor before being a writer. I was grabbed by her a  few years ago when she was on the BBC show Imagine talking about her life she even showed the first practice which is in this book.

I hated being female. I felt as if I was in chains – chains forged by my own blood trying me to the bed so that I couldn’t run and jump, chains produced by the cells of my own body, chains of shame and humiliation. I turned in on myself to cover up my miserable exictence.

I no longer went out to run and play. The two mounds on my chest were growing bigger. They bounced gently as I walked. I was unhappy with my tall slender frame folding my arms over my chest to hide it and looking sadly at my brother and his friends as they played.

The years she becomes a teen and more visible as a woman.

This is a fictionalized version of Nawal’s own journey in many ways. The narrator of the books is a driven young woman growing up in fifties Egypt. Her observations as a child reveal much about the society of the time.  her older brother always has the best in there home the larges slice of meat at breakfast that she sees as unfair. The best things are always his and as she grows even thou she is younger she is bigger than her brother. she is determined to study medicine. This is a wonderful female take on the Bildungsroman genre as we see her fight the male-centered society from her fellow students when studying medicine. She cuts her hair and avoids the arranged marriage her parents try to push her into. Then when she becomes a doctor her patients are shocked she is so beautiful as a doctor this line made me laugh as thou the beauty of the doctor made a difference. A failed marriage against her parent’s advice but when he tries to tell her what to do in the home she decides he isn’t the one. She is battling all the time is that perfect man just around the corner.

I left my room and went to sit in the big common room. I opened a medical journal and tried to read it, but I couldn’t help my thoughts straying to the doctor’s wing where the colleague on night duty was nownow asleep. For no obvious reason it occurred to me that i was alone with a man in the middle of the night and only a closed doorseparated e from him. Althouh I was wide awake this idea came to me like a dream and I felt afraid …. No,Not afraid,worried..No, not even that, for I felt desifre, or not quite desire but a strange disturbing feelin that made me glance furtively at closed door from time to time

It is hard for her at the medical school as this pasage shows.

This is a very short book easily read in an evening. Great feminist work about how determined women in a very male-centered society could make her way even with hurdles put in front of her. The shock of her first view of a naked male when she was at medical school when she had to cut up a dead male and this was her first view. I felt the latter part of the book was maybe trying to put too many years into too few pages which is a great shame as the early family years and the time studying were very captivating. But the later times were maybe lightly covered. This was her first novel and it was a great debut I was sent the other books that  Saqi brought out in there Saqi bookshelf series.

Temple Bar by Bahaa Abdelmegid

 

Temple Bar by Bahaa Abdelmegid

Egyptian fiction

Original title – Khammarat al-ma’bad

Translator – Jonathan Wright

Source – personal copy

So we move from Lampedusa yesterday across the med to North Africa and an Egyptian Novel mainly set in Dublin. As I have felt I haven’t reviewed enough Arab fiction I have gone out and got some recently and this is the first of those I am reviewing. Bahaa Abdelmegid is a lecturer in English literature at Cario University. He himself was a student in Ireland at Trinty College at the same time as the character in his book Moataz. Not entirely Autobiographical in an interview at the time the book came out he wants the hero of the book to be like those in Passage to India or A Death in Venice.

As soon as she had gone, the landlord and I went up to the room. He was aman in his seventies, but well-built, with sever features, a powerful voice, and white hair like his mother.He showed me how to use the gas meter saying that you have to put fifty to cook a meal and warm the room for two hours, fifty pence to use the electricty for a day and fifty pence to have a shower.The more energy you cosumed the , the more you paid. I remembered reading in the Cario newspaper Al-Abram that Ireland imports natrual gas from Egypt through an underwater pipeline.

The cost of his digs adds up bit by bit as he is told how far fifty pence will go in the meters.

Moataz has got a scholarship to Trinity college as he is doing a Ph.D. on the Irish poet Seamus Heaney. He has a family that has very high expectations of him. So the trip to Dublin has given him a breathing space in his world. He arrives and is sent to a boarding house with an old fashion landlord that tells him he will have to pay fifty pence for this fifty pence for this. He nearly ends up on the street early on when his father is late putting money in his account and leaves him penniless. He wanders the streets and sees the ghost of Ireland great writers as he wanders like the hero of Joyce Ulysses Bloom and Stephen did. Moataz is a man haunted by those women he left behind failed romance and the woman he meets in Dublin and is drawn to them. He struggles forced in the middle of the day to sell flowers to make ends meet. He also ends up in Trouble with the law in Dublin which leads him to head out of town. The trip out of town has a lasting effect on him he heads North to Belfast and the troubles in the north. A different city from Dublin he says full of politics and struggle but leaves it calling it his O beautiful Belfast as it was where Heaney studied at Queens. He eventually returns to Cario and marries but is a man changed by his time in Dublin.

The beautiful women of Dublin

When I started at Trinity college in Dublin, I couldn’t work out the university women. I couldn’t tell whteher they were conservative and shy,or whether they just didn’t welcome freindship with a young foreign man. They didn’t speak to me and I couldn’t find the right words to start a conversation with them. Pergaps I was shy too, perhaps I  had litttle knowledge of women ot too many miscinceptions of western- that they were easy and available , so why was it difficult to get to know them ?

Moataz and his experience early on with the women of the university before he met Simone!

I choose this book just because it is a book about a subject I love that of Culture clash seeing a place you know well through another cultures eyes. I spent a lot of time in my youth in Ireland mostly around Belfast but have also spent time in Dublin. This is like Heinrich Boll’s book Irish Journal or Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas one that is an ode to the country and the writers that haunt the city of Dublin especially Joyce. Although the modern multinational Dublin we see through Moataz eyes is a far cry from Bloom’s Dublin his view of the city is similar crossing the Liffey, flower sellers and underlying sexual desires. Bloom and Moataz share that repressed nature one remembers Blooms description of the woman on the beach in Ulysses that is echoed somewhat in Moataz meet Simone. He also captures the time this is just after the Good Friday deal but at this time the bombing of Omagh happened which is touched on a bombing that touched our family as we have relatives in that town as well that had friends effect by the bomb. A short book easily read in a day but one seep in the writers love for Ireland and the writers but also the effects of that town on a young Egyptian writer.

The Harafish by Naguib Mahfouz

The Harafish by Naguib Mahfouz

Egyptian fiction

Original title –  ملحمة الحرافيش

Translator – Catherine Cobham

Source – personal copy

I was looking for a number of books to do for the 1977 club and this was another that cropped up as coming out in Arabic that year. Mahfouz was a Nobel winner. He was regarded as the first truly modern writer in Egypt and his books have been described as Existentialist in their style. He is maybe best known for his Cario Trilogy. A man that spoke out for what he believed in most of his books were banned in the Arab world to his Nobel win. It also gives me a chance to fill a gap in the writers that should be on this blog.

Nothing like this had ever happened in the alley. The police only came near it in extreme emergencies. The clan chief’s numerous crimes were usually unattributed, thanks to the testimony of false witness. was inspector Faud Abd al-Tawwab going to do what nobody had done before him of Mohammed Anwar’s body was discovered on the path or under the archway? How had Muhammad had the insolence to go to the police for help, and why had the inspector been ready to challenge Nuh in this underhand way?

The police were rare visitors to the Alley here because someone went outside the alley world.

The harafish is a family saga told over ten chapters as we follow the family living in an alley from Ashur Al Nagi whom is the chief of the family in the first tale through the years and generations til the last story Ashur crops up again the chapters are told in small vignettes. I liked the style it was almost like reading or listening to gossip on the street among the Harafish as the people of the alley are called. Exist is hard at times I remember a line on page 301 where someone says “you’d preserve your youth forever ” this shows the toughness of this world. The cycles of the alley violence trying to get to the top is repeated over the chapters the characters are different sons or daughters of earlier characters. I loved the part in one chapter, when the police appeared which was considered an outrage as they liked to run there own little world.

The emotions of the Nagi family and the harafish were set in turmoil by the unexpected return and sudden disappearence of Samah. His sons were probably the least affected of anybody because he came and went while they were asleep and anyway, as far as they were concerned, he was no longer much more than a faint memory, like their mother in Bulaq. His story was told far and wide, and became a legend and a cautionary tale.

The opening of the fifth chapter and already past battles become like a myth or legend.

This is a clever book as you think it is cardio and feel as though you know the timeframe of the novel. But nothing is ever said about the timeframe of the novel or the location of the book all we know is that the families live in an alley where the characters all live. A true family saga covering the years of a place. Mahfouz was a fan of Zola and Balzacs works and there is a feeling of their worlds here a tough look at life realist but also at the same time without time and place it could be another place even if you change the names and in that regard for me it is a true work of Existentialism of the question why are we here why are they there what makes their world. A great second choice for 1977club and for me another piece in the canon of books and writers I have covered on the blog. I hope at some point to bring the Cario trilogy to the blog.

 

Butterfly wings by Mohamed Salmawy

 

Butterfly wings by Mohamed Salmawy

Egyptian fiction

Original title أجنحة الفراشة

Translator – Raphael Cohen

Source – Library edition

I took some short novels from the library to read on my time off , but as ever when you are away time was short sightseeing and spending time with amanda but I did manage to read this great Arabic novel by Mohamed Salmawy . Salmawy is the president of the writers union of Egypt and secretary-general of the Arab Writers and also editor of a leading daily newspaper. This book came out just before the events of 2011 , so in a way is quite insightful about what happened then .

Doha imagined that meeting Ashraf al-Zayni on the plane had been a chance encounter.It would be over when the flight ended and they went their separate ways- she to Milan for the annual fashion show and he to Palermo in Scilly for the international NGO conference. Fate , however had something in store for her that she neither expected nor imagined.

The three and a half hours of the flight from Cario to Rome left an impression that would remain with her for the rest of her life.She had never met anyone like Ashraf al-Zayni before .She saw in him something she not seen in other politicians, plus  he had brought back to life something inside her that she had not believed still existed

The chancce encounter leaves an impression on the both .

This is a story with two main characters in it Doha is a fashion designer , a sort of link between the west and arab world , she comfortably travels between here homeland and The fashion world of Italy . Her husband is a leading figure in the Murbareck regime . We see their privileged world . But after a chance encounter with Dr Ashraf a man from the opposition she meets when they are both in Rome after talking to him she sees a new insight into her world . But even with this sense the wind may be changing in her homeland she returns and like the old saying about chaos theory a butterfly wings flapping can change the world the butterfly appears time after time whether flying or in patterns on the clothes Doha is wanting to show , the two meet later in the book as the tables are turned slightly from their first meeting  . Add to that a couple of small side stories about a man waiting to meet his internet wife and a pair of brothers hunting for the real mother.

Unable to rest, Doha flicked through The butterflies of Egypt , she came to a photograph of the mural in the tomb where the ancient  Egyptian artist had painted a picture of the butterfly . The tomb belonged to a noble called Nob Amun. According to the book , there were fifty-eight indigenous species in Egypt , which was a relatively small number in comparison with other countries. This was due to Egypt’s desert environment . Neverless , Egypt’s butterflies had adapted to the harsh conditions and were able to survive and maintain their beauty despite hardships

LIke the country itself the butterflies make a good metaphor from the Egypt post Arab spring .

This is another book that captures the can of worms that was opened in Egypt when Murbarek regime was on the verge of collapsing as part of the Arab spring A figure like Ashraf , is a passionate voice of a the young people on the street we saw so much in the TV coverage  clever wanting a bright future , which as we know never really happened . There is also echos of this change in the brothers seeking their mother a new mother maybe is clever metaphor for a new country and leadership. I also love the subtle use of butterflies as a recurring Motif throughout the book. But also a larger motif of the country emerging as a butterfly from it catalyst moment of the riots being the start of something beautiful like a pure white Butterfly. This is clever look at the recent past of Egypt.

Otared by Mohammad Rabie

Otared by Mohammad rabie

Egyptian Fiction

Original title – Utarid

Translator – Robin Moger

Source – Review copy

When I was contact by the person from Hoopoe fiction the new imprint from AUC , I was more than happy to receive there first few books as I am always meaning to read more Arabic fiction, I read a number a few years ago when Arablit did a list of must read Arabic books in her arabic summer reading challenge , I can’t believe it is seven years ago well more than over due so more Arabic titles on the Blog and today we start with Mohammad Rabie an Egyptian writer , who has written three novels this his latest was shortlisted for this year Arabic book prize.

This blood line put me in mind of many things.

It was traced on the wall, not quite vertically but leaning  at a slight angle and at its apex looping sharply back to the ground. Small droplets hung down, running from the edge of the bend. It reminded me of an ostrich’s tail feather, a column of water rising from a fountain, the glowing tracks of fireworks launched across the sky

The butcher was a true professional.

The opening lines give a sense of what follows in this book as he says thew traces if blood remind him of so much .

 

This is a book about Egypt today but has been written in a future time frame looking back .It is 2025 and Cairo has been invaded by the Knights of Malta this sets a policeman Ahmed Otared also a former sniper to join the liberation force as the city is turned into a den of sex drugs and violence they set about freeing it . Then in another timeline we look back at the failed Arab spring of 2011 through the view of a family that are left feeling alienate and dead after the failed Arab spring . This then leads to the later events when the city uncared for becomes a bloodbath as Otared and his fellow fighters violently try to wrestle back egypt for the Egyptians .

The Tower group was our official designation, and one that no one will ever find recorded in any official document. But it was the term “Hornets “which caught the imagination of the general public and became our Nom de guerre . Truth be told , no one had the slightest knowledge of our presence, but they were aware that there were many snipers stationed throughout the city, on rooftops and up tall buildings. We left a clear trail – an officer walking down the street then dropping without  warning; a soldier sittin g calmly at a cafe, his brains sprayed over the tables of those sitting beside him – and so it was that people came to conflate the Tower group with snipers scattered through the streets of East Cario .

The group Otared is in is killing anyone in the way to get rid of the Knights of Malta from Cario !

This is of course a work of what is a growing move into Genre fiction in the Arab lit world. This book is to say the least is violent it is full of killing and violence as a country wrestles with its self to claim its self back at a point I felt as thou he had swap Beirut of the 80’s for the Cairo of the 2025 the internal violence and way the city is falling apart remind me of those news reports we saw of the Lebanon capital  in the 1980s builds scared with gunfire and a sense of lawlessness in the city itself. I saw an interview with rabie he made for the Arabic shortlist talking about the book and the sense that there was a sense of loss of place in some people’s hearts after the failed Arab spring. This is a book that shows what could happen a dark turn that could be taken an undercurrent waiting 800-1000 died in Cario in 2011 . How many more next time ? A brutal book about a world that could happen , as I said in my wioletta Greg post when did we here in the Uk stop being interested in the world  news (I know we have this on radio 4 and newsnight etc but on our main news it is so much less than years ago ). Have you read any of the Arabic prize books ?

 

Taxi by Khaled Al Khamissi

Egyptian fiction

Original title -Hawadith al-mashawir

Translator – Jonathan Wright

Source personnel E book copy

Khaled Al Khamissi is an Egyptian born ,writer he has written two novels so far .He studied Political science and university .This book thou published in 2006 /7 .A ;lot of what is spoken in the book seems very much still to be the case in Egypt .

‘People wonder why the economy’s screwed up,’ the driver said. ‘It’s screwed up because of people. Would you believe it, a country like Egypt, the people here spend more than 20 billion pounds a year on telephone calls. Twenty billion pounds, I mean, if we didn’t talk for two or three years, would Egypt be different?

Khamissi, Khaled Al (2012-03-15). Taxi (English edition)

 

Taxi is made up of 58 stories or is it voices ,from all round Cairo the voice of the taxi drivers of Cairo ,their  stories paint the city from top to bottom from the upper echelons to the lowest street people ,what we get is a clutter city  but city wanting to move forward ,of hard-working souls and corruption and uneven lifestyles come across .The from seatbelts to cinema ,Iraq ,Palestine and Israeli all crop up in the chats note in the stories .But at the back of it from time to time is the police corruption and the president at the time Mubarak   looming in the background as we see these windows of Cairo tell the tales to a unnnamed man in the taxis .

‘The whole story was business on business. The big guys imported seatbelts and sold them and made millions . The Interior Ministry issued one ticket after the other and collected millions. The wretched cops on the street would stop you and say: “Where’s your seatbelt, you bastard?” and you’d have to slip him a fiver, and if he stopped you when an officer was there , it would be twenty pounds. I mean, everyone benefited.

how they ended up with seatbelts in the city according to one driver ?

Well this book still seems fresh not seven years on yes the modern Egypt has moved quickly ,but one feels from the bits we see on the UK news that the basic problems that underlie these stories and people in the stories are the same .The city comes across as a place of divide but also great characters . I was reminded of the book written about a tube train and its passengers that had great snippets of of there lives .Also the book has a non fiction feel at times ,you never quite sure what has been heard and what was made up ,I feel maybe from what I’ve read about the book one thing we maybe have missed in Jonathan Wrights great translation is dialect that part of the book that if you live in Cairo maybe opens the book even more like a Londoner would gather more from an east end dialect and a city boys speaking but that aside I felt it was a great view into Cairo just before it blew up and maybe in here are a few clues too why it happened .

What is your favourite book on Egypt ?

Azazeel by Youssef Ziedan

Azazeel by Youssef Ziedan

Egyptian Fiction

Translator  Jonathan Wright

Youssef Ziedan was born in Upper Egypt and raised in Alexandria and studied  philosophy and the Sufism .He is an academic and in charge of the manuscript centre and Museum at Alexandria .He has published over fifty books in arabic both fiction and Non fiction .Azazeel is possibly his most well know and controversal ,it also was the international prize for Arabic fiction winner in 2009 .

Azazeel is a wonderfully realistic piece of historic fiction set in the 5th century Ad and told via a translator of the original manuscripts that we written by Hypa at the time .,we are drawn via the main character Hypa a Coptic monk into the begins of modern religions early christian beliefs but what may have also been the belief of people who later became Islamic .Allow set 1500 hundred years in the past there are some parts of this tale still ring true today every one’s struggle with good and evil  is the same as we see Hypa wrestle with the devil on his journey through the book .When he wrote the book in Arabic originally it seems Zieden intentionality of unintentionally open a provirbal bucket of worms .It seems rare according to Arablit that books deal so closely with religion in egyptian Fiction .So Hypa in a way this is a man coming of age through the book as he wrestle with him self and his own soul but also the temptations of the outside world .But in this questioning he maybe touches on faults with in the christian faith ,this is what so inflamed the Coptic christians in Egypt .We see Hypa meet merchants ,widow and singer he meets along the way ,for although he is a monk he isn’t a monk in the sense we see monks now he is religious but also has interludes with people one my favourite scenes is  with Octavia a women there seems a spark til he mentions he is a monk and then is order from the house .This book is one of those books that has a bit of everything gore ,sex and life but far from feeling like a historic document Ziedan has brought the 5th century to life ,I personally feel  this is  one of my all time favourite historic novels ,I have struggle myself with novels that are historic that deal with history pre 1800 ,but this one kept me interested from the first to the last page .

A moment of shocked silence passed .Octavia bowed her head ,then looked towards me .Her face was flushed with anger ,and her eyes inflamed with a furious sadness .Suddenly she sprang to her feet and stood like one of those massive ancient statues ,full of pagan vigour and ancestral bitterness .She stretched her right arm towards the door and shouted at me in a fearsome voice ,like the rumbling of Alexandria thunder or the howling of a raging pagan wind “Out of my house ,you wretch ,out you villan ”

Hypa has to leave .

I discussed this book when I was in London with Mark who I feel maybe loved the book even  more than me ,we both lament the fact the book which is a great piece of historic fiction , controversial and thought-provoking seemed to have fallen under the radar so much here in the UK on its release with few mentions in papers and the reviews that have come out  have come out over time so not catching the eye by being in every paper pone weekend  .I fin it strange with recent major uk  book prize being won by historic fiction Wolf hall winning the booker and Madeline winning the orange prize last night .Is the fact that this book obviously written by one of the leading experts in the time and full of his obvious insights into the time and the people ,he has spent many years working on real manuscripts from the time so gave this book a real sense of being a real piece of history not a novel .Seems to have fallen onto deaf ears is a shame I feel it is a better historic novel than wolf hall was and also one that gives you many questions about life and religion and yourself after reading it ,which in some way isn’t that the job of great fiction ?

Have you read this book ?

Do you have a favourite Arabic novel ?

Tales from Dayrut by Mohamed Mustagab

Mohamed Mustagab grew up in Dayrut in the upper Nile region of Egypt ,he was involved in the construction industry before becoming a Journalist ,He Has a number of collections of short stories published in English he died in 2006 aged 68 ,he was also general director of the academy of arabic language in later life .This collection of short stories focus on the town of his birth it ,which is a poverty stricken area but with a rich character as portrayed in these stories and the novella ,we meet numerous characters from the village ,there is a murder in Bughayi bridge where divers and the police discover numerous body parts as the crowd of onlookers grows the bride gives way,after there has been a lot of honor style killings ,some stories are funny like the JBR’s telling of a clan and Jabir the camels they keep ,eating camel meat and drying the sinews ,the book last part is a novella called The secret history of Nu’man A bd al -Hafiz which tells of nu’man becoming a man having his circumcision which doesn’t go quite to plan  and marriage wonderful evocative story of a small town man the description of his life ,even down to the dowries that were passed on by the families on his marriage .

1. forty pounds to be paid in its entirety immediately following the winter hold on irrigation ,meaning the case when umm Nu’mans supply of clamped salted fish had run out .

2. six kilos of buuya wheat or eight of Australian wheat .

3.five ratls of clarified buffalo butter or seven of cow’s .

4.A goat or sheep for slaughter .

the list of dowries items .

The is a real beauty in Mustagab’s writing a man looking back on the characters and environs of his childhood in the town of Dayrut ,the stories are some times edging into the surreal and at times have a real dark satire element ,the area he is talking about is a place rich in spirit and beliefs . This gives a great view of an area of Egypt I didn’t know anything about .As ever Humphrey Davies does a wonderful job on translation but what else would you expect from the prize-winning translator ,the book is published by the american university press of Cairo .This is my third read for the arabic summer reading challenge from arablit blog .I ve some more arabic books as well to read over the next month or two as well.