The Yacoubian Building - Hardcover

Al Aswany, Alaa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 9774248627 ISBN 13: 9789774248627

Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press, 2005

Synopsis

The Yacoubian Building holds all that Egypt was and has become over the 75 years since its namesake was built on one of downtown Cairo’s main boulevards. From the pious son of the building’s doorkeeper and the raucous, impoverished squatters on its roof, via the tattered aristocrat and the gay intellectual in its apartments, to the ruthless businessman whose stores occupy its ground floor, each sharply etched character embodies a facet of modern Egypt―one where political corruption, ill-gotten wealth, and religious hypocrisy are natural allies, where the arrogance and defensiveness of the powerful find expression in the exploitation of the weak, where youthful idealism can turn quickly to extremism, and where an older, less violent vision of society may yet prevail. Alaa Al Aswany’s novel caused an unprecedented stir when it was first published in 2002 and has remained the world’s best selling novel in the Arabic language since.

About this title

About the Author:

Alaa Al Aswany was born in 1957. A dentist whose first office was in the Yacoubian Building, Al Aswany has written prolifically for Egyptian newspapers across the political spectrum on literature, politics, and social issues.

Humphrey Davies earned his doctorate in Near Eastern Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the translator of Thebes at War by Naguib Mahfouz (AUC Press, 2003). He was awarded the 2010 Saif Ghobash–Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for his translation of Yalo by Elias Khoury.

Review:

"Top of my list is The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswamy (Harper Perennial). The book has been a best seller in its native Egypt and throughout the Arabic world since publication in 2002. Set in downtown Cairo at the time of the 1990 Gulf War, it reveals modern Egyptian life through the eyes of a diverse range of characters an aristocratic playboy, a gay newspaper editor, a religious zealot, childhood sweethearts all of whom live in the same apartment building. Cairo hasn't been so vividly - or sexily - evoked since Naguib Mahfouz's Palace Walk. " --The Guardian

About this edition

• Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 9774248627
• ISBN 13: 9789774248627
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 266