With summer’s long lazy days rapidly approaching, it is a great opportunity to read or reread some great modern Egyptian classics.
Whether you’re enjoying a long day on the beach, spending a quiet night at home or trying to escape the Middle Eastern heat, these modern Egyptian classics, which are available both in Arabic and English, are great choices for traveling in time. And who knows, you might even improve that brain-cell count.
1. Naguib Mahfouz’s trilogy, “Three Novels of Ancient Egypt"
The Egyptian novelist, who is best-known for his Nobel Prize-winning “The Cairo Trilogy," is a mainstay of modern Egyptian literature. However, this epic-but-underrated trilogy set in Ancient Egypt was his debut stab at literature.
“Khufu’s Wisdom” tells the story of the legendary Fourth Dynasty monarch as his rule ends and his daughter falls in love with the man succeeding him. “Rhadopis of Nubia” is a historical love story between Pharoah Merenra II and the courtesan Rhadopis. The final installment, “Thebes at War,” tells the story of Egypt's struggle and victory over the Hyksos, who dominated the country for two centuries.
2. Yousif Idris’ “City of Love and Ashes”
While Idris is renowned for his highly acclaimed short stories, he also proved to critics to be a great novelist with this historical novel. Winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, this modern Egyptian classic tells a love story set in Cairo in 1952 as Egypt struggled to fight British occupation and colonialism. The novel was acclaimed for capturing the human essence of its characters as well as the soul of Cairo, with critic Ferial Ghazoul saying that “Idris raises his authentic characters into convincing types within their context: he makes us live their agonies and hopes."
3. Edwar Al Kharraṭ’s “Rama and the Dragon”
This unique novel is also a winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, whose judges called it “a breakthrough in the literary history of modern Arabic fiction.” In this cohabitation of history and philosophy, Kharrat structures a love story in the form of a narrative discourse that presents historical Egyptian realities from the 1940s, 1960s and 1970s.
4. Taha Hussein’s “A Man of Letters”
From one of the most influential writers in the history of Egyptian literature comes this novel, based on the true story of a friend of the writer. The book it highlights an identity crisis many youth in Egypt and the Arab world can relate to.
Set in Cairo and Paris, this novel about morality tells the story of a young man’s struggle to maintain his identity as he tries to reconcile between Eastern and Western cultures. The novel not only shows the nature of life for Egyptians at the time who split their lives between Europe and Egypt in order to pursue academic ventures, but it also offers Hussein’s thoughtful insight into human experience.