- ʿAlāʾ al-Aswānī (1957-, Egypt) –ʿImārat Yaʿqūbiyān (2002, English trans. The Yacoubian Building, 2004). Set in Cairo, this novel connects different characters and parallel stories to a building known as the Yacoubian Building. The novel starts in the interwar period and continues through the political changes following Nasser’s 1952 revolution (see 1952: Revolution in Egypt), after the façade of the building deteriorates and poor unemployed workers replace the rich elite living in it. The novel offers a snapshot of the explosive social situation in Egypt prior to the revolution in the spring of 2011. In 2006 it was made into a movie (also in L: LGBTQ: Male Homosexuality and 1954 Nasser comes to power in Egypt).
- Ganzeer (Muḥammad Fahmy, ?, Egypt), Dunīa Māhir (1979-, Egypt) and Aḥmad Nādī (1981-. Egypt) collaborated in producing the graphic novel al-Shaqqa fī Bāb al-Lūq (2014, English trans. The Apartment in Bab el-Louk, 2017). As the title suggests, the artwork is set in Cairo’s downtown neighbourhood of Bāb al-Lūq, location of both Egypt’s interior ministry as well as the Taḥrīr square. The graphic novel contains illustrations by Ganzeer and Aḥmad Nādī, and writings by Dunīa Māhir, that describe life both inside and outside of the apartment, including the story of a detective finding a body and the events that follow, all the while providing a collaborative portrait of Cairo using different disciplines.
- Jamāl al-Ghīṭānī (1945 – 2015, Egypt) – Waqāʾiʿ Ḥārat al-Zaʿfarānī (1979, English trans. The Zafarani Files, 2008). This novel portrays everyday life in a working-class Cairo quarter by using newspapers and official reports. The novel’s main themes include power, corruption, and coercion, embodied by the mysterious Shaykh ʿAṭiyya who uses his position to assert control as the alley suddenly succumbs to an epidemic of impotence (reference). The Shaykh himself seems to have cast a spell on the men. The novel breaks many taboos through its detailed description of its characters’ lives, including their bedroom escapades (reference) (also in D: Disabilities, Illness and Psychological Disorders: Impotence and Castration).
- Omar Robert Hamilton (1984-, Egypt) – The City Always Wins (2017). This novel is a reflection on the 2011 revolution in Egypt, which was quickly followed by the tides of counter-revolution, a Muslim Brotherhood government, and the rise of the Sisi regime (reference). The novel centers Khalil, a US-born Palestinian Egyptian who co-founds the media collective ‘Chaos’, broadcast of the revolutionaries. In the novel, the city of Cairo is a lively character, which, like the hopes of a new era, increasingly falls victim to the revolution’s failure (also in 2011: Arab Uprisings: Egypt).
- Khālid Khamīsī’s (1962 -, Egypt) Tāksī: Ḥawādith al-Mashāwīr (2007, English trans. Taxi, 2008). This collection of 58 short stories, written mainly in the Egyptian Arabic dialect, forms a Cairene taxi driver’s diary reflections of Cairo’s urban sociology before the overthrow of Mubarak. It is based on conversations the author had with taxi drivers that describe the daily issues of ordinary Egyptians such as police brutality, privatization, and systematic corruption. The author stated that Taxi was influenced by the Maqāma tradition (reference) (also in L: Cultural and Literary Heritage: Classical Arabic Literature: Maqāmāt).
- Najīb Maḥfūẓ (1911 – 2006, Egypt) has a series of novels named after the Cairo streets, such as Khān al-Khalīlī (1945, English trans. Khan al-Khalili: A Novel, 2011) and Zuqāq al-Midaq (1947, English trans. Midaq Alley, 1966), which present a unique portrait of the lives of the city’s inhabitants sketched with love and affection (reference). Maḥfūẓ also wrote a trilogy on the city, which can be found in English translation in one volume as The Cairo Trilogy (2001) or as separate works.
Khān al-Khalīlī covers the period during World War II from 1941 to 1943. Aḥmad, an employee at the Ministry of Works, and his family move to Khān Khalīlī street, thinking that the Nazis wouldn’t dare to bomb that neighborhood because of its religious significance. The novel describes the lively daily social and political realities of the neighborhood, especially during Ramadan, and its population’s support for the Germans rather than the British (also in 1940 – 1945 World War II).
Zuqāq al-Midaq, also set in during World War II, is named after a poor alley in the Khan al-Khalili historical area and bazaar in Cairo, and describes the activities that take place in the alley in the 1940s, the different social classes that frequent its bars, and its inhabitants, from a young woman who ends up in prostitution, to a café-owner who likes boys.
The Cairo trilogy contains the three novels Bayn al-Qasrayn (1956, English trans. Palace Walk, 1990), Qasr al-Shawq (1957, English trans. Palace of Desire, 1991), al-Sukkariya (1957, English trans. Sugar Street, 1992), and uses the ʿAbd al-Jawwād family as the focus for a huge canvas of Egyptian political and cultural life from 1917 to 1944, from Britain’s occupation to World War II (reference). The first novel introduces the tyrannical patriarch, his wife and their five children, who in the second novel, experiencing the modernisation of Egypt try to move beyond their father’s dominant hand. In the last novel, the live of the father’s grandchildren are described as they each choose their own political path (also in also F: Family Life: Genealogies and History and 1952 Revolution in Egypt: Before the Revolution).
- Aḥmad Nājī (1985 -, Egypt) – Istikhdām al-Ḥayāh (2014, English trans. The Use of Life, 2017). A dystopian graphic novel, illustrated by Ayman al-Zarqānī, that revolves around the 46-year-old hero Bassām who looks back at his youth in Cairo before it was wiped out by a series of natural disasters. The young Bassām is a filmmaker shooting a documentary about Cairo that sparks a discussion about the future of the city. The novel depicts the crude life of youngsters, filled with drugs, alcohol, and sex, but is also a story of love and friendship (reference). The author was the first since the 2011 uprisings to receive a prison sentence for his explicit sexual language and scenes in the novel (also in S: Speculative Fiction: Dystopia).
- Majdī al-Shāfʿī’s (?, Egypt) graphic novel Mitrū (2008, English trans. Metro, 2012). Offers a vivid portrait of Cairo under Mubarak’s rule. When a friend of Shahhāb and Musṭafā is murdered, they discover that the murder is never really investigated, but that the case is surrounded with deceitful information exposing the ills of Egyptian society, including corruption and neglect from the authorities, police, and press (reference). To find a solution to their own poverty, the two friends plan a bank robbery (also in G: Dysfunctional Governance: Corruption).
- The Book of Cairo (2019), eds. by Raph Cormack, is a collection of short stories from different Egyptian authors that focusses on the city of Cairo. It features contributions by and is part of Comma Press’ ‘Reading the City’ collection that also includes The Book of Khartoum and The Book of Gaza (see below in Sudan and Palestine).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- EAL, p. 253
- Will Evans. 2012. “The Zafarani Files.” www.rochester.edu, 12 June 2012 https://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/2012/06/20/the-zafarani-files-2/ (last accessed 20 November 2021)
- Robin Yassin-Kassab. 2017. “The City Always Wins by Omar Robert Hamilton review – an astonishing debut novel.” www.theguardian.com, 4 August 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/04/city-always-wins-omar-robert-hamilton (last accessed 15 February 2024)
- Elisabeth Jaquette. 2013. “Khaled al-Khamissi on TAXI, the maqama, and Prime Minister Johnnt Walker.” www.full-stop.net 1 April 2013 https://www.full-stop.net/2013/04/01/features/essays/elisabeth-jaquette/khaled-al-khamissi-on-taxi-the-maqama-and-prime-minister-johnny-walker/ (last accessed 6 February 2021)
- EAL, p. 170
- EAL, p. 490
- Elisabetta Rossi. 2015. “What’s the Real Nature of Ahmed Naji’s Novel ‘The Use of Life’?” www.arablit.com, 5 November 2015 https://arablit.org/2015/11/05/whats-the-real-nature-of-ahmed-najis-novel-the-use-of-life/ (last accessed 14 February 2021)
- Iman Hanafy. 2016. “Revolutionizing the Graphic Novel: A Study of El- Shafee’s ‘Metro’,” symploke 34(1-2): 421-434, p. 425