
Poor
A Modern Arabic Novel
Idris Ali(Author)
The American University in Cairo Press
Published on 15. January 2008
Book
Hardback
160 pages
978-977-416-111-7 (ISBN)
Description
This is an intense and powerful story by one of Egypt's leading Nubian authors. "This is your last day. Be strong. Don't hesitate. Cut and go. An exit with no return." Idris Ali's confessional novel opens with these words, spoken on an unbearably hot August afternoon in downtown Cairo, where the Nubian narrator has just decided, once and for all, to end his life. Delirious and thirsty, he wanders around venting his resentments large and small, his sexual frustrations, and his sense of powerlessness in the face of unremitting injustice. He seeks to expunge his failed life in the Nile: the river that had been the life blood of his country for millennia, and that - with Egypt's new dam - now drowns Nubia, flinging her dispossessed sons north and south into exile. Many years ago, the narrator was one of those sons, fleeing flood and famine only to arrive in Cairo, penniless and shoeless, in time to see it go up in flames, the old regime overthrown by "the men in tanks." "Poor" is the story of a life of grinding destitution, physical deprivation, and emotional starvation.
It is also the story of opportunities squandered and hopes traded away for nothing - of a life lived, at times, all too poorly.
It is also the story of opportunities squandered and hopes traded away for nothing - of a life lived, at times, all too poorly.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cairo
Egypt
ISBN-13
978-977-416-111-7 (9789774161117)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Idris Ali, one of Egypt's leading Nubian writers, is the author of three short story collections and six novels, including Dongola (AUC Press, 2006). Self-taught in literature, he attended the Religious Institute of al-Azhar and currently lives in Cairo. Elliott Colla teaches comparative literature at Brown University. He is the author of Conflicted Antiquities and the translator of The Heron by Ibrahim Aslan (AUC Press, 2005).