The award–a silver medal and cash prize–has been presented each year since 1996. The medal’s presented on December 11, Mahfouz’s birthday. Tonight, it’s to be delivered by Prof. Rasheed el-Enany. […]
The Last of the Angels, Fadhil al Azzawi, Free Press, 2008 This book, by al-Azzawi, is full of appealing, over-the-top black comedy as well as those moments when comedy no […]
Words Without Borders is featuring international science fiction this December. Unfortunately, there are no offerings from the Arabic (I would love to read a narrative about 22nd century Cairo), but […]
Ahmed Alaidy’s Being Abbas El Abd shares the sinews of Palahniuk’s Fight Club—yes—and the wounded center of other boy-lit I’ve read. It’s also, of course, Egyptian, and redeemed by a […]
“Pragmatic politics has nothing to do with literature. If you ask me about a pragmatic solution, I think all this complication can be solved in two minutes. There are occupied […]
This time it’s Cairo Modern, reviewed here (un-starred) by Publishers Weekly. Now I am about to agree with the Angry Arab News Service (Dr. As`ad AbuKhalil) and his assessment that […]
The IPAF (“Arabic Booker”)-sponsored retreat to Baniyas Island is over, and a few of the authors—including Egypt’s Mansoura el-Ezdin, longlisted for this year’s Arabic Booker—spoke with The National about their […]
Bikya Masr reports that Magdy el-Shafee and his publisher have been fined 5,000LE for the publication and distribution of Egypt’s first graphic novel, Metro. Apparently it offended public morals. You […]
We were in a stationary store a few month’s back—these sometimes double as book shops in Cairo—and my six-year-old son asked for a new book. Fine, we said. There were […]
