![]() ![]() Davies (Translator) 3.70 20,551 ratings1,745 reviews This controversial bestselling novel in the Arab world reveals the political corruption, sexual repression, religious extremism, and modern hopes of Egypt today. Al Aswany's interwoven narratives of the diverse inhabitants of a once grand, now dilapidated, apartment block in downtown Cairo marry the humanist realism of Balzac with the hyperbolic momentum of Egyptian soap opera. The Yacoubian Building Alaa Al Aswany,, Humphrey T. Yet despite dealing with serious subjects, the experience of reading the novel is more akin to a guilty literary pleasure than a civic duty. It engages with corruption, homophobia, sexism, Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism all sensitive and controversial issues in contemporary Egyptian society. This addictively readable evocation of Cairo at a time of political and social ferment, during the first Gulf War, is both a damning critique and a love letter to a city and its inhabitants. Its beautifully written, its incredibly readable, its often very funny and I suspect it will go on being read for many years as a kind of portrait of Egypt. Built in 1934 by an Italian firm for an Armenian millionaire, the Yacoubian Building, 'ten lofty stories in the high European style', is a metaphor for wider historical upheavals. ![]() ![]() The Yacoubian Building has topped the bestseller lists for over two years, been adapted for the screen by Marwan Hamid and inspired impassioned cultural debate. It would be difficult to overestimate the impact that Alaa Al Aswany's novel has had in Egypt. ![]()
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