The Zafarani Files
A Modern Arabic Novel
Published on 19. April 2015
Book
Paperback/Softback
344 pages
978-977-416-694-5 (ISBN)
Description
An unknown observer is watching the residents of a small, closely-knit neighborhood in Cairo's old city, making notes. The college graduate, the street vendors, the political prisoner, the caf owner, the taxi driver, the beautiful green-eyed young wife with the troll of a husband--all are subjects of surveillance. The watcher's reports flow seamlessly into a narrative about Zafarani Alley, a village tucked into a corner of the city, where intrigue is the main entertainment, and everyone has a secret. Suspicion, superstition, and a wicked humor prevail in this darkly comedic novel. Drawing upon the experience of his own childhood growing up in al-Hussein, where the fictional Zafarani Alley is located, Gamal al-Ghitani has created a world richly populated with characters and situations that possess authenticity behind their veils of satire.
Reviews / Votes
"Ghitani's account of ordinary folk faced with a catastrophe that will spread across the world might suggest comparisons with British science-fiction novels of the 1950s, such as John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids or John Christopher's The Death of Grass, but the tone of the Egyptian novel is absurdist and bleakly comic and a more appropriate comparison might be with Ionesco's Rhinoceros. The translator, Farouk Abdel Wahab, has done his work so well that it is almost invisible and I often forgot that I was reading a translation."-Robert Irwin, Times Literary Supplement"An incredibly funny, inventive novel"-Chad Post, Three Percent
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cairo
Egypt
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 223 mm
Width: 141 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
559 gr
ISBN-13
978-977-416-694-5 (9789774166945)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Previous edition
Book
03/2009
The American University in Cairo Press
€24.00
Article not available at the moment
Person
Gamal al-Ghitani, born in 1945, is the author of Zayni Barakat (AUC Press, 2004), The Mahfouz Dialogs (AUC Press, 2007), and Pyramid Texts (AUC Press, 2007). He is editor-in-chief of the literary review Akhbar al-adab.
Farouk Abdel Wahab was Ibn Rushd Professorial Lecturer in Arabic at the University of Chicago. He was the translator of many works of Arabic fiction, including Gamal al-Ghitani's The Book of Epiphanies (AUC Press, 2012). He won the 2007 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for his translation of The Lodging House, by Khairy Shalaby (AUC Press pbk, 2008). He died in 2013.
Farouk Abdel Wahab was Ibn Rushd Professorial Lecturer in Arabic at the University of Chicago. He was the translator of many works of Arabic fiction, including Gamal al-Ghitani's The Book of Epiphanies (AUC Press, 2012). He won the 2007 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for his translation of The Lodging House, by Khairy Shalaby (AUC Press pbk, 2008). He died in 2013.