8 Books by Egyptian Writers Everyone Should Read

I have prepared a short list of books by Egyptian authors exploring the texture of the Egyptian society throughout various eras of the 20^th century and early 21^st century which I hope you will find useful and interesting.

1 Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi

Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi was published in 1975 and it tells a story of a woman on death row for killing a man. It is based on a real story of Firdaus who was sentenced to death in 1974 for killing her pimp. The book retraces the main character’s life, from being born in a rural Egyptian village, her childhood dreams, neglect, abuse she had experienced in the society that put the interests of men above the interests of women, to her adulthood when her life circumstances conditioned her into prostitution. The main themes include the position of women in a patriarchal society, genital mutilation, the impact of the Islamic faith on people’s everyday life especially that of women and children, the notion of freedom, free will, social norms, morality, forced marriage, domestic abuse and sexual violence against female children and women, disparity between one’s actions and their adherence to the religious doctrine.

2 Distant View of a Minaret by Alifa Rifaat

Distant View of a Minaret by Alifa Rifaat is a collection of fifteen short stories depicting the lives of women within a traditional Muslim society. Rifaat shows Muslim women who wish to adhere to strict religious teachings while perceiving men as the ones who do not follow their religious obligations towards women. Rifaat challenges the social attitudes within the Egyptian society, but her perception of feminism is very different to the one shared by the Western societies. The main themes in these stories relate to marriage, death, sexual fulfillment, physical and emotional abuse, loneliness in the loveless life, the difficulty to communicate one’s emotions to others, ageing and its impact on marriages and intimacy, and the relationships from women’s perspective portrayed within the religious norms and moral values of Islam. Rifaat’s stories show women who have views, opinions within a religious conservative framework but mostly their opinions are confined to the narrow world they inhabit. She depicts women at different point in their lives including female children, young and middle-aged women, widows, single elderly women. As for Rifaat herself, she was born in 1939 and spent all her life in Egypt, mostly in the provincial towns, a devout Muslim with a strong knowledge of religious Islamic texts. She never received a formal higher education, spoke only Arabic and was detached from the Western influences. Most of her contemporaries who wrote were mainly men and represented members of so-called upper class who often had formal university education and spoke multiple languages. Rifaat’s collection of stories was published in 1983 which is remarkable taking into consideration social and political challenges of that era.. The pure honesty in these stories regarding women’s emotions is extraordinary for the times when Distant view of a Minaret was written and published.

3 Traces of Enayat by Iman Mersal

Traces of Enayat by the Egyptian writer Iman Mersal was published in 2019  and tells a story of another Egyptian female writer, Enayat Al-Zayyat who committed suicide at the age of 26 in 1963. She only wrote one book called Love and Silence which initially rejected for publication but later was published posthumously. Love and Silence explores one’s woman quest for a sense of belonging in the pre-1952 revolution Egyptian society inspired a film and other cultural endeavours and then Enayat and her book was completely forgotten. Iman Mersal stumbles upon Love and Silence in one of the Cairo second-hand bookstores in 1993 which inspired her to find out more about Enayat. Over the next decades Iman tries to learn more about Enayat, and why she was erased from the pages of the Egyptian literary history. She interviews Enayat’s friends, family members, tracks down schools Enayat attended, neighbourhoods she lived in, the sanatoriums she went to, the Cairo German Institute where Enayat worked. Traces of Enayat also touches on domestic abuse and mental health and their perception by the Egyptian society. The book also gives a rich layered depiction of Cairo’s society of the 1950s and 1960s and includes interesting references to the golden age Egyptian cinema. I found the story of Enayat profoundly moving and compelling. Traces of Enayat is an engaging read, rich in the cultural and historical commentary.  It constitutes an exploration of the erasure of one’s life from the public memory and of the reasons why Enayat’s work was omitted from all the literary journal and never included in the anthologies dedicated to the women writing in Arabic. Traces of Enayat also highlights the importance of the personal archive including personal journals, letters, notes, annotations, pictures, as a way to show the appreciation of one’s humanity. To an extent Traces of Enayat is also the portrayal of the 1990s Egypt; this was the era when Iman found Love and Silence in one of the old bookstores, when the writers experienced many obstacles and when Iman herself decided to leave her home country. Traces of Enayat is not a typical biography, with the linear sequence of dates but rather a book highlighting one life at one point in the history, multilayered, conditioned by the historic events. For Enayat in the 1950s and 1960s as well as for Iman in the 1990s and during the later decades, books, cinema and music all serve as vehicles to escape the present-day realities and allow them to feel less trapped by the social norms surrounding them.  I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

4 Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller by Nadia Wassef

 Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller by Nadia Wassef is a memoir of one of the founders of Diwan, a bookstore in Cairo open in 2002 by three women with no previous experience in business or book selling. Diwan’s name means, depending on the translation,  either a meeting place and a collection of poetry,   offered books not only in Arabic but also in English, French and German. The book shows the power of written word in the society going through turbulent political and social changes and provides many excellent literary references for the lovers of the Egyptian literature. This is also a portrayal of the women’s position in the Egyptian society, the women who are running a business encountering multiple challenges due to the fact they are women. It is worth noting that Wassef’s Egypt is the one of the so-called upper-class and of privilege. There is a clear difference between the lives she leads, and the one led by her working-class employees. The difference between secular and religious Egypt is also depicted on the pages of the book as well as everyday life marred by economic stagnancy, corruption and raise to prominence of Muslim Brotherhood which shocked many upper-class Egyptians. Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller also shows the Egyptian society during the years leading to the Arab Spring in 2011. It is a very interesting and engaging read, written in lyrical and compassionate prose.

5 The Quarter Stories by Naguib Mahfouz

The Quarter Stories by Naguib Mahfouz is a collection of short stories about people living in Cairo’s Gamaliya quarter, ‘a neighbourhood of demons, dancing and sweet halva’. This collection is a bit like ‘sweet halva’. Stories included in this collection take us into the heart of rich, fluid and diverse world of the alleyways of Cairo and allow us to meet the most ordinary of its inhabitants portayed in all its complexity. We meet Cairo’s Street vendors, poets, barbers, families and others. As Elif Shafak writes in her introduction to ‘The Quarter’, Mahfouz shows us ‘the extraordinary within the ordinary, the invisible within the visible’. Similarly, like Istanbul shaped Orhan Pamuk’s writings, Cairo also created Mahfouz – the writer. Mahfouz is often compared to Tolstoy, Dickens and Balzac with his luminous writing, lyrical and nuanced approach. He was the first writer of Arabic language to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988. Also, Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy is a wonderful read. It is worth noting that he was actually the one in the early 1960s who praised Enayat mentioned above for her talent.

6 The Hashish Waiter by Khairy Shalaby

The Hashish Waiter by Khairy Shalaby tells a story of a cafe in a rundown quarter of Cairo where writers, painters, filmmakers gather to smoke hashish and  talk about culture, politics and their personal freedom and how the political situation is affecting their daily life.  The important thing to remember is that the book is set in the late 1970s around the time of the Camp David Accords. The conversations of all the cafe visitors often refer to the political situation of that era. It gives the readers the insight into a slice of life and how people thought, even the ones with the most ‘liberal’ views. I found this book very useful in broadening my views and understanding of that era from a certain perspective.

7 The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany

The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany depicts a variety of characters living in the same building in Cairo, which used to be a glamours apartment block but now it’s rather run down. Set in the early 1990s the book is  very atmospheric providing readers with the microcosm of the Egyptian society with all its social and political turmoils and challenges. The book was originally published in 2002, and The Yacoubian Building actually exists or existed in Cairo where author’s father had lived.

8 Out of Egypt by Andre Aciman

Out of Egypt by Andre Aciman is a memoir based  in Alexandria exploring the life of Aciman’s Sephardi Jewish family from its arrival in Egypt at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century until the family is forced into  exile from Egypt due to political situation in the 1950s. Out of Egypt provides such an interesting picture of Egypt, the Jewish community, full of nostalgia for the bygone era with many eccentric characters, with the Alexandrian society depicted as being widely cosmopolitan and multilingual.