He casts a shrewd eye over the six decades since Gamal Abdel Nasser's 1952 revolution, taking stock of all the main players – Islamists, liberal capitalists, Coptic Christians, the army and young Egyptians. Egypt on the Brink by Tarek OsmanĮgyptian writer and commentator Osman provides the backstory on why people took to the streets to oust Mubarak in 2011. He says dentistry is his "window on Egyptian society", which is no doubt what spurred him to write one of the biggest-selling novels in the Arab world. The novel reflects the frustration Egyptians feel in a society where money and influence are prized above all else it offers a damning indictment of the powers that be.Ī dentist by profession, Al Aswany opened his first clinic in Cairo's real-life Yacoubian building.
Among the bustling building's residents are poor squatters living on the roof, an ageing playboy looking fondly to a bygone era, a gay newspaper editor in love with a policeman, a bitter doorkeeper's son who seeks solace in militant Islam, and a woman who puts up with sexual harassment at work so that she can keep her job and support her family.
The taboo-busting novel tells of Cairo's residents going about their lives and encountering corruption, police brutality, sexism, homophobia and religious extremism – all seething under the surface of then president Hosni Mubarak's sclerotic regime. The once grand, now decaying apartment block in central Cairo houses a rich cast of characters, whose stories Al Aswany weaves together to portray contemporary Egyptian life. Sex and the city loom large in the lives of the Yacoubian building's inhabitants. He survived an assassination attempt by Islamists in 1994, and died in 2006. Mahfouz, the Arab world's most celebrated novelist, won the Nobel prize in 1988. As Egypt struggles to end colonial rule, the al-Jawad children struggle to break free from their father's tyrannical control.
Their trials and tribulations mirror those of their changing country. Mahfouz paints an intimate portrait of the al-Jawads with humour and great attention to detail. But his own behaviour is far from irreproachable as he indulges his desires for fine wine and voluptuous women. He runs his family strictly according to Qur'anic principles and demands unquestioning obedience. Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, a prosperous merchant, rules over his wife, three sons and two daughters with an iron hand.
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