“So if we have a character that says “so” — which is one of Mobarak’s least favorite words because we do not have many monosyllabic words in Arabic ending in “o” — we cannot use its Arabic equivalent ثم, which necessitates closed lips.”Continue Reading

Other bookshops offering summer discounts include Alef Bookstores and El Kotob Khan. And if you’re World Cup-obsessed, don’t forget that there are lots of great books about kora: I saw Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch at Alef, and I’m sure it’s elsewhere as well. You can also read Mohamed al-Bisatie’s DrumbeatContinue Reading

Dr. Samia Mehrez last night signed copies of her (sorry, not her) Literary Atlas of Cairo, the first of a two-volume project that maps Cairo through its literature, providing “a literary topography of the sociocultural, political, and urban history of the city by bringing together some one hundred works byContinue Reading

Samia Mehrez’s 2008 work of literary criticism, Egypt’s Culture Wars, has finally made it to print in Egypt (AUC Press, March 2010). This week, Youssef Rakha takes the opportunity to comment in Al Ahram Weekly. Rakha begins his critique with a charming exaggeration: Recently, in an otherwise casual conversation, aContinue Reading