Cairo: The City Victorious
Max Rodenbeck
“An affectionate description, historical and contemporary, of the huge city,” is how the New York Times Book Review describes journalist Max Rodenbeck’s first-person travelogue that examines the imprint ancient civilizations and 20th-century rulers have left on Cairo, as well as its current identity crisis and flirtation with Islamic fundamentalism. Whether describing King Farouk’s corrupt reign, Anwar Sadat’s nationalistic vision, or Cairo’s crowded slums and belly-dance theatres, the author’s wry approach and skill for anecdote has earned his book a word-of-mouth reputation as the definitive “insider’s look” into a complicated and multi-faceted metropolis.

The Yacoubian Building
Alaa Al Aswany
Touted as the most important Egyptian novel of recent times, this controversial bestseller, and now adapted into a film starring Egypt’s acting elite, The Yacoubian Building exposes the seedy underbelly of modern Egypt. It sheds rare light on homosexuality, political corruption, and religious extremism. The lives of a fading aristocrat, a newspaper editor helplessly in love, a devout young student pulled inexorably toward fundamentalism, and a corrupt and avaricious politician intersect seamlessly in what the UK’s Daily Telegraph described as an “intriguing and highly charged novel”. At once blunt and compassionate, Alaa Al Aswany drives his disparate characters towards a gripping conclusion.