Eid is a great time for relaxing and reading – if family obligations allow you to do that. One of the best books that I have read recently (actually yesterday – my birthday present) is “The Yacoubian Building” by the Egyptian author Alaa al-Aswany. His books are selling wildly in my country and last week his new novel “Chicago” was released in Danish translation.
I am not so familiar with Arabic literature, but this book was a revelation to me. Through different intertwined stories related to Yacoubians House Alaa al-Aswany describes the power of the all mighty state and the powerlessness of his main characters. He does that with a humours twist and by confronting his reader with almost all the taboos that you can dream of. Corruption, homosexuality, terrorism, prostitution, police brutality, sex and sex outside marriage and abortion to mention some.
While promoting his new book in Denmark last week he made a number of interviews with Danish journalists. One of the questions he was asked in every interview was how he could get away with writing a novel like this?
”When you have success, there will also be greater leeway, but there has always been greater leeway in Egypt than there was in the rest of the Arab world. We have no freedom of expression in the sense that it is a democratic means of change, because it would mean that if a journalist revealed a minister committing a crime or an abuse of power, it would have an effect. You could say that we in Egypt have freedom of speech. We can say and write what we want, but the government is anyway doing, what it pleases” said Alaa al-Aswany during a brief visit to Copenhagen. (Politiken in Danish).
I don’t know if that makes you laugh or cry but “The Yacoubian Building” definitely makes me want to read “Chicago”.
October 3, 2008 at 01:54
and Chicago is even better
.
I enjoyed reading both novels. He is really good, and his characters are very real.
Yacobian building was turned into a movie. It has been the biggest production of the Egyptian Cinema last year. You should check it out. I don’t know if there is a copy with English tranlsations or not.
October 5, 2008 at 17:52
Yes, the book was made a movie but the book was better. There are many books that you can find at Books@Cafe and in certain bookstores in Cairo that discuses taboos in the middle east.