The novel’s focus on a crumbling architectural gem serves more widely as a metaphor for the history of Egypt pre-Arab Spring, with the gradual disillusionment experienced by many of the characters, who find themselves, variously, embroiled in family feuds, sexually coerced and manipulated, and thwarted in their attempts to make their way in the world on the basis of merit. “ ten lofty stories in the high classical European style, the balconies decorated with Greek faces carved in stone, the columns, steps and corridors all of natural marble … an architectural gem that so exceeded expectations that its owner requested of the Italian architect on the inside of the doorway … as though to immortalise his name and emphasise his ownership of the gorgeous building“ The book, in its broadest sense, describes the changing fate of a building, a beautiful but now faded apartment block built during the 1930s: The Yacoubian Building has therefore achieved something that very few Middle Eastern novels manage: a huge popular readership, not only domestically, but throughout the wider region and across the world. This Egyptian best-selling novel, written by former dentist Alaa Al Aswany, was first published in 2002, and immediately had an enormous impact, becoming a national bestseller and the world’s best-selling work of fiction in the Arabic language. Translated from the Arabic by Humphrey Davies
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