Lit & Found: On Amr Fatehi’s ‘The Reading List’
Last Saturday, Al Ahlam ran a review of Amr Fatehi’s قائمة القراءة (The Reading List), a list of authors’ — mostly Egyptians’ — favorite books.
The review, by Dina Ezzat, offers a glimpse into what seems like a rich inquiry, published this year by Al Karma.
Ezzat writes, in her introduction to the book:
With diligent but strict archival work, Amr Fatehi must have gone through endless volumes of papers, magazines, and radio and television recordings to dig out this very thorough – at times rich – insight on some of the favourite books of 75 writers, mostly Egyptian, who lived and wrote since the late 19th century.
In essence, she writes, “this close to 300-page book is a compilation of books to which the selected 70 writers have made references – brief or detailed – in articles they wrote or interviews they gave.”
Readers will not be surprised to hear about the preponderance of Russian works and Arabic classics, nor that the review mentions the appearance of only one listed book by a woman author — Rose Al-Youssef’s memoirs.
Among the most recommended Arab authors, Ezzat writes, are Yusuf Idris, Yehya Hakki, and Khairy Shalaby.
Read the whole review:
Book Review: Ideas on what to read from the masters of writing