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lauren_endnotes's review against another edition
3.0
"Democracy cannot be muddled through," Tarek said. "It is a single indivisible principle. All the people of Egypt say: we want to topple the regime. We went to the Square for that right. I knew what was right because I saw what was wrong."
Image from The New Yorker - Tahrir Square: A Year in Graffiti
Steavenson interviews dozens of people - some pre-Tahrir in her first assignment in 2008, and many more over the year of revolution that began in 2011 at Tahrir Square. Some stories are short and focus on the everyday life of people in Cairo: family, law, religion. There are stories of restaurant owners, photographers, "thugs", city planners... and Steavenson is accompanied by Hassan, her translator, who also plays a role in translating cultural norms and customs.
The stories are rich and layered, painting a full contextual picture of Cairo, and Egypt at that point in time. While the stories were compelling - and the accompanying street art and graffiti from around Cairo was fabulous - I felt the book was missing a narrative that could tie the stories together cohesively.
Read for Book Riot's 2016 Read Harder Challenge - Politics in your country or another country
Image from The New Yorker - Tahrir Square: A Year in Graffiti
Steavenson interviews dozens of people - some pre-Tahrir in her first assignment in 2008, and many more over the year of revolution that began in 2011 at Tahrir Square. Some stories are short and focus on the everyday life of people in Cairo: family, law, religion. There are stories of restaurant owners, photographers, "thugs", city planners... and Steavenson is accompanied by Hassan, her translator, who also plays a role in translating cultural norms and customs.
The stories are rich and layered, painting a full contextual picture of Cairo, and Egypt at that point in time. While the stories were compelling - and the accompanying street art and graffiti from around Cairo was fabulous - I felt the book was missing a narrative that could tie the stories together cohesively.
Read for Book Riot's 2016 Read Harder Challenge - Politics in your country or another country
sabai's review
5.0
This book makes it very clear from the outset that there is no clear headed logic to the events in Egypt from the protests to the many coups and counter coups since, and this is why it's so good. Steavenson's notes on the revolution are as much about the people who weren't there as those who were, and through her own struggles to understand the whos, whats and whys, we get to see a constantly shifting view of events, told through characters who are changing as time progresses. Steavenson's observations are almost poetic, the sidebar to the frenzy of real life events as she constantly tries to step back and see things more clearly and then gets reeled back in.
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