What I’m Reading Now
Nov 17th, 2007 by azadeh
I’ve just finished the Yacoubian Building, by Alaa al-Aswany, and I’m desolate that it’s over. I loved it for its storytelling, its scathing indictment of Egyptian dictatorship, its sumptuous descriptions of downtown Cairo in all its shabby splendor. It took less than a week to read, which, given that I have a small baby, should tell you something about the novel’s irresistability. Al-Aswany has a deft, gentle touch, bringing the reader face to face with the brutality of Egypt’s poverty and its vile state security apparatus, without ever lapsing into academic lecture or the tone of a human rights report.
My dear friend Kim Ghattas (Beirut correspondent for the BBC, just recently made State Department correspondent — hooray Kim!) informs me that the book has been made into a movie that is equally spectacular. She’s seen it three times already, which, given that she covers a country torn by internal strife and Islamist hullaballoo, says something about how great it must be. I can’t wait to see it.
[...] Moaveni called the book irresistible, which was good enough of an endorsement for [...]