Der ägyptische Schriftsteller Sonallah Ibrahim gewährt in seinem Notizbuch einen Einblick in zwei seiner Romane, die in einem eher dokumentarischen Stil geschrieben sind, eine persönliche Geschichte mit dem politischen Umfeld verweben und Exzerpte von Zeitschriften und Ansprachen zitieren. Eine der Hauptfiguren, Dhat, muss in ihrem Leben Leid und Unglück ertragen, verursacht durch die politische Situation in ihrem Heimatland. Die andere, Warda, widmet ihr Leben der Befreiung der Menschheit...

Sonallah Ibrahim’s 2000 masterpiece offers readers a view of twentieth-century world events through the diary pages of his titular character1950s Cairo: the intersection of conflicting dreams and political destinies. In this classic novel translated for the first time into English, idealistic reporter Rushdy encounters the enchanting Warda at a clandestine leftist meeting. Their fates would be forever linked. After Warda goes missing, Rushdy immerses himself in her...

A riveting novel that is both an indictment and an elegy, a second-person memoir of Nasser’s final months in the voice of his former prisoner.In 1959, at the age of twenty-two, Egyptian novelist Sonallah Ibrahim was imprisoned by Gamal Abdel Nasser’s regime. Over the following five years in prison in Egypt’s Western Desert, Ibrahim kept diaries that he smuggled out on cigarette papers.In this novel, Ibrahim takes up Nasser as a fictional character tied tigh...

That Smell is Sonallah Ibrahim’s modernist masterpiece and one of the most influential Arabic novels. Composed in the wake of a five-year prison sentence, the semi-autobiographical story follows a recently released political prisoner as he wanders through Cairo, adrift in his native city.That Smell is Sonallah Ibrahim’s modernist masterpiece and one of the most influential novels written in Arabic since WWII. Composed after a five-year term in prison, the semi-aut...

A young son wanders Cairo trying to comprehend why his mother has disappearedSet in the turbulent years before the 1952 revolution that would overthrow King Farouk and bring Gamal Abdel Nasser to power, Stealth — by Sonallah Ibrahim, one of Egypt’s most respected and uncompromising novelists — is a gripping story seen through the eyes of an eleven-year-old boy. A young Egyptian’s coming of age proves halting and uncertain as he fails to outgrow dependence ...

»Willkommen in Kairo« ist eine einzigartige Einladung, das Land am Nil aus der Sicht ägyptischer Erfolgsautorinnen und -autoren zu entdecken. Die Texte, sorgfältig ausgewählt aus der Reihe zeitgenössischer arabischer Literatur im Lenos Verlag, bestechen durch ihre erzählerische Brillanz und ihre authentische Perspektive auf die ägyptische Gesellschaft. Sie handeln vom Alltag, benennen kompromisslos Tabus, führen soziale Ungerechtigkeiten vor Augen oder stellen mit Selbstironie und Witz kul...