Scan barcode
papelgren's review
3.0
Worth a look for fiction readers of the world. It made me want to look into some of the other fiction of the writers included, especially those persecuted for their work.
thebobsphere's review
4.0
As I have said many times, I am a big fan of indie publishers, mainly because they always come up with interesting ideas. At the moment, I’m liking Comma Press’ ‘Reading the City’ series. It’s a simple idea, ten short stories about a city written by authors who live there. This time the focus is on Cairo.
We all know that in the last few years Cairo has undergone changes, many of them problematic but I will admit that these ten stories portray Cairo from a different angle. For starters, more than half these stories are genuinely funny; there’s Hatem Hafiz’s Whine (trans by Raphael Cohen) which concerns a government employee, who goes through an existential crises, or the professional rumormonger of Mohammed Kheir’s Talk (trans by Kareem James Abu-Zeid). The sex obsessed marjuana maker in Ahmed Naji’s (trans by Elisabeth Jaquette) brilliant Siniora. Even the opening story Gridlock offers a humorous view of Cairo’s citizens during a busy morning.
Out of the more serious one’s there’s the heartfelt closer An Alternative Guide to Getting Lost, which is about a woman who desperately wants to escape Cairo by plane but cannot and then there’ the centrepiece of the whole collection, Hassan Abdel Mawgoud’s (Trans by Thoraya El-Rayyes) Into the Emptiness, which I think provides a full picture of both the beautiful and frustrating aspect of Cairo life.
Then there’s the downright weird Soul at Rest is about a judgemental person who writes obituaries for a newspaper and Two Sisters, a offbeat romance featuring a masked video store clerk.
The Book of Cairo has something for everyone and is quite a varied collection. It’s quite rare that you’ll laugh, cry and smile within the space of a 100 pages but this volume manages to do that perfectly. Each story is a winner and a must read in it’s own right.
We all know that in the last few years Cairo has undergone changes, many of them problematic but I will admit that these ten stories portray Cairo from a different angle. For starters, more than half these stories are genuinely funny; there’s Hatem Hafiz’s Whine (trans by Raphael Cohen) which concerns a government employee, who goes through an existential crises, or the professional rumormonger of Mohammed Kheir’s Talk (trans by Kareem James Abu-Zeid). The sex obsessed marjuana maker in Ahmed Naji’s (trans by Elisabeth Jaquette) brilliant Siniora. Even the opening story Gridlock offers a humorous view of Cairo’s citizens during a busy morning.
Out of the more serious one’s there’s the heartfelt closer An Alternative Guide to Getting Lost, which is about a woman who desperately wants to escape Cairo by plane but cannot and then there’ the centrepiece of the whole collection, Hassan Abdel Mawgoud’s (Trans by Thoraya El-Rayyes) Into the Emptiness, which I think provides a full picture of both the beautiful and frustrating aspect of Cairo life.
Then there’s the downright weird Soul at Rest is about a judgemental person who writes obituaries for a newspaper and Two Sisters, a offbeat romance featuring a masked video store clerk.
The Book of Cairo has something for everyone and is quite a varied collection. It’s quite rare that you’ll laugh, cry and smile within the space of a 100 pages but this volume manages to do that perfectly. Each story is a winner and a must read in it’s own right.
romantiques's review
3.0
"i sat there smoking, dreaming of long walls and filthy surroundings, somewhere with no room for hope or dreams."
i'm so excited to keep reading the books from this series.
i'm so excited to keep reading the books from this series.
halibut's review
5.0
My favourite collection of short fiction I've read this year. Lots of the stories (or my favourites anyway) have a mix of mundanity, humour and weirdness. My favourite was Into the Emptiness, the sense of unreality experienced by the narrator living on a city fringe was really convincing. Hamada Al-Ginn is a brutal and funny bit of satire, very keen to read that writers other work.
weaselweader's review
4.0
“ … intimate views of life, tinged with satire, surrealism, and humour”
When I booked a trip to Cairo, my first international post-Covid trip in almost three bleak stay-at-home years, I wanted a book that would give me a feel for the city and some small understanding of what makes it tick. I was searching for a book that would treat Cairo in a manner and with a level of importance that would effectively elevate the city itself to the level of a character in the story.
I had hopes but THE BOOK OF CAIRO was not that book!
In fact, far from providing any insights into Cairo’s nature, the stories in THE BOOK OF CAIRO rarely stray far out of the mental headspace of the narrators of the individual stories. They are little more than a collection of short-lived glimpses into the ruminations of a handful of Arabic men simply going about their daily lives and thinking their daily thoughts. And, lest my comment be misunderstood, I’ll rush to say that the stories, English translations from a handful of Egyptian authors, are definitely clever and eminently enjoyable. They are also unique in my reading experience to the extent that I’ve never read any English short stories quite like them. Perhaps (and I have no way of judging whether my guess is correct), these stories reflect a manner of thinking that is born and bred in a Cairene, (a way of thinking that is entirely foreign, and hence rather puzzling to me as a white North American reader). These stories may reflect the culture, societal values and norms that become second nature to a native-born Arabic speaker, someone close to the ideology of Islam, someone with a different ethnicity than my own, someone - a Cairene, an Egyptian, a native of the Middle East - with a personal or national history that bears zero resemblance to mine.
By all means, buy the book and enjoy a very diverse set of oddly compelling stories. But just don’t imagine that you’ll come away from the book informed in any measure about the city of Cairo.
Paul Weiss
When I booked a trip to Cairo, my first international post-Covid trip in almost three bleak stay-at-home years, I wanted a book that would give me a feel for the city and some small understanding of what makes it tick. I was searching for a book that would treat Cairo in a manner and with a level of importance that would effectively elevate the city itself to the level of a character in the story.
I had hopes but THE BOOK OF CAIRO was not that book!
In fact, far from providing any insights into Cairo’s nature, the stories in THE BOOK OF CAIRO rarely stray far out of the mental headspace of the narrators of the individual stories. They are little more than a collection of short-lived glimpses into the ruminations of a handful of Arabic men simply going about their daily lives and thinking their daily thoughts. And, lest my comment be misunderstood, I’ll rush to say that the stories, English translations from a handful of Egyptian authors, are definitely clever and eminently enjoyable. They are also unique in my reading experience to the extent that I’ve never read any English short stories quite like them. Perhaps (and I have no way of judging whether my guess is correct), these stories reflect a manner of thinking that is born and bred in a Cairene, (a way of thinking that is entirely foreign, and hence rather puzzling to me as a white North American reader). These stories may reflect the culture, societal values and norms that become second nature to a native-born Arabic speaker, someone close to the ideology of Islam, someone with a different ethnicity than my own, someone - a Cairene, an Egyptian, a native of the Middle East - with a personal or national history that bears zero resemblance to mine.
By all means, buy the book and enjoy a very diverse set of oddly compelling stories. But just don’t imagine that you’ll come away from the book informed in any measure about the city of Cairo.
Paul Weiss
_sarahramadan's review
3.0
I didn't really know what to expect from this book, maybe a collection of stories that really captured the atmosphere of one of my favourite cities. What I found was different, and to be honest I didn't really 'get' a few of these stories, and I found some boring, but some of them were intriguing.
The story which tells the story of how various members of a typical Cairo traffic jam end up there was good; I love stories where different people's lives come together. I was gripped by the story of the sexually frustrated guy smoking weed in his apartment, the descriptions and language explicit in a way I didn't really expect from an Arab writer - he actually ended up in jail for writing so sexually in one of his other books.
The satirical piece on a policeman trying to find The Truth was another that stood out to me, for displaying police brutality and torture methods yet insisting sardonically that policemen who do this are still normal people, because they still fast and read and pace in their apartments.
So I suppose this book really did look into the heart of many issues at the heart of Cairene life that its citizens face and of course when works are translated they do not carry the same essence as they do in their original language so I must take that into account. However I think I was just not really able to sink my teeth into a fair few of these stories, and although I enjoyed reading something different for a change, I ended up being a little underwhelmed.
The story which tells the story of how various members of a typical Cairo traffic jam end up there was good; I love stories where different people's lives come together. I was gripped by the story of the sexually frustrated guy smoking weed in his apartment, the descriptions and language explicit in a way I didn't really expect from an Arab writer - he actually ended up in jail for writing so sexually in one of his other books.
The satirical piece on a policeman trying to find The Truth was another that stood out to me, for displaying police brutality and torture methods yet insisting sardonically that policemen who do this are still normal people, because they still fast and read and pace in their apartments.
So I suppose this book really did look into the heart of many issues at the heart of Cairene life that its citizens face and of course when works are translated they do not carry the same essence as they do in their original language so I must take that into account. However I think I was just not really able to sink my teeth into a fair few of these stories, and although I enjoyed reading something different for a change, I ended up being a little underwhelmed.
booksbythewindow's review against another edition
informative
For Full Review: The Book of Cairo – Books by the Window (wordpress.com)
Summary: There are ten short stories included in this anthology, each exploring differing experiences of characters living in Cairo. The anthology opens with Mohamed Salah al-Azab’s ‘Gridlock’, translated by Adam Talib, which recounts the morning of a number of characters whose paths cross in one specific traffic jam, clearly evoking the noises of a city centre at rush hour. From there, several stories follow individual characters struggling with the direction of their lives.
Overall Thoughts: For me, the opening six stories were the highlight of the anthology, each bringing to life diverse characters and aspects of Cairo. Although none of them stood out to me in particular, all six as a whole served to do exactly what I as a reader was hoping for from the anthology: allowing me an insight into the day to day life of the city. After the opening six stories, I was taken by surprise at the change of pace in the final four, with the middle two in particular being a struggle to get through. This was a good introduction to some of the literature of Egypt and I will certainly be keeping an eye out for some of these writers in the future.
Summary: There are ten short stories included in this anthology, each exploring differing experiences of characters living in Cairo. The anthology opens with Mohamed Salah al-Azab’s ‘Gridlock’, translated by Adam Talib, which recounts the morning of a number of characters whose paths cross in one specific traffic jam, clearly evoking the noises of a city centre at rush hour. From there, several stories follow individual characters struggling with the direction of their lives.
Overall Thoughts: For me, the opening six stories were the highlight of the anthology, each bringing to life diverse characters and aspects of Cairo. Although none of them stood out to me in particular, all six as a whole served to do exactly what I as a reader was hoping for from the anthology: allowing me an insight into the day to day life of the city. After the opening six stories, I was taken by surprise at the change of pace in the final four, with the middle two in particular being a struggle to get through. This was a good introduction to some of the literature of Egypt and I will certainly be keeping an eye out for some of these writers in the future.
caropi's review
adventurous
emotional
fast-paced
- Strong character development? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
3.5
joannakarenina's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
shapedbystories's review against another edition
3.0
I didn't really know what to expect from this book, maybe a collection of stories that really captured the atmosphere of one of my favourite cities. What I found was different, and to be honest I didn't really 'get' a few of these stories, and I found some boring, but some of them were intriguing.
The story which tells the story of how various members of a typical Cairo traffic jam end up there was good; I love stories where different people's lives come together. I was gripped by the story of the sexually frustrated guy smoking weed in his apartment, the descriptions and language explicit in a way I didn't really expect from an Arab writer - he actually ended up in jail for writing so sexually in one of his other books.
The satirical piece on a policeman trying to find The Truth was another that stood out to me, for displaying police brutality and torture methods yet insisting sardonically that policemen who do this are still normal people, because they still fast and read and pace in their apartments.
So I suppose this book really did look into the heart of many issues at the heart of Cairene life that its citizens face and of course when works are translated they do not carry the same essence as they do in their original language so I must take that into account. However I think I was just not really able to sink my teeth into a fair few of these stories, and although I enjoyed reading something different for a change, I ended up being a little underwhelmed.
The story which tells the story of how various members of a typical Cairo traffic jam end up there was good; I love stories where different people's lives come together. I was gripped by the story of the sexually frustrated guy smoking weed in his apartment, the descriptions and language explicit in a way I didn't really expect from an Arab writer - he actually ended up in jail for writing so sexually in one of his other books.
The satirical piece on a policeman trying to find The Truth was another that stood out to me, for displaying police brutality and torture methods yet insisting sardonically that policemen who do this are still normal people, because they still fast and read and pace in their apartments.
So I suppose this book really did look into the heart of many issues at the heart of Cairene life that its citizens face and of course when works are translated they do not carry the same essence as they do in their original language so I must take that into account. However I think I was just not really able to sink my teeth into a fair few of these stories, and although I enjoyed reading something different for a change, I ended up being a little underwhelmed.
More...