Mohamed Mustagab's Books

Tales from Dayrut

Short Stories

By: Mohamed Mustagab

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

This collection of fourteen connected stories and a novella, From the Secret History of Numan Abdel Hafez, takes us deep into Upper Egypt and the village of Dayrut al-Sharif, in which Mohamed Mustagab was born. To depict a world renowned for its poverty, ignorance, vendettas, and implacable code of honor, Mustagab deploys the black humor and Swiftian sarcasm of the insider who knows his society only too well. When the stillness of a day's end is shattered by a single gunshot, poignant beauty merges seamlessly into horror, and when a police officer seeking to unravel a murder finds himself with more body parts than he knows what to do with, violence tips as easily into farce. In counterpoint, the author's often surrealist imagination explores the mysteries of a landscape where seductive women haunt dusty paths and a man may find himself crushed like a worm beneath another's foot. Elsewhere, the horizons of 'my village' expand to include other countries (the author worked in the Arabian Peninsula for a number of years), where equally disastrous consequences follow on folly and self-delusion. Previously almost unknown in English, Mustagab's voice is both original and disturbing.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

211

Publisher

American University in Cairo Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1617971731

ISBN 13

9781617971730

Clamor of the Lake

By: Mohamed El-Bisatie

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Clamor of the Lake

By: Mohamed El-Bisatie

Clamor of the Lake begins with the appearance of an old fisherman of unknown origin sailing a black boat. Taciturn and enigmatic, he takes on a woman and her twin boys. While he gives away nothing about his past, his undemanding companionship prompts the woman to narrate her turbulent life. Meanwhile, in a nearby village by the lake, Gomaa and his wife have found respite from the dreariness of their existence in the fantastic objects the sea churns up during gales-a sword, alluring panties, a talisman. But when the waves cast up a chest that speaks in a language no one can comprehend, Gomaa is haunted by its voice. As the tumult of the lake drives a wedge between the couple, it turns two neighbors into close allies: Karawia, a café proprietor, and Afifi, a grocer. Eventually, they too will be haunted by the siren song of the lake. In Mohamed El-Bisatie's lyrical novel, the stories of these various figures converge on the mercurial presence of the lake, which in the end proves the narrative's true hero. An accomplished experiment in the poetics of space, Clamor of the Lake won the 1995 Cairo International Book Fair Award for Best Novel of the Year. "--Publisher description.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

156

Publisher

American Univ in Cairo Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

9774162412

ISBN 13

9789774162411

Like a Summer Never to Be Repeated

By: Mohamed Berrada

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Like a Summer Never to Be Repeated

By: Mohamed Berrada

Like a Summer Never to Be Repeated is a fascinating and highly experimental story based loosely around the author's own experiences in Egypt as a Moroccan student and visiting intellectual. In Cairo the narrator, Hammad, takes us on a deeply personal journey of discovery from the heady days of the 1950s and 1960s, with all the optimism and excitement surrounding Moroccan independence, Suez, and Abdel Nasser, up to the 1990s and the time of writing, revealing an individual intensely concerned with Arab life and culture. Meanwhile, his regular visits to Cairo allow us to watch a culture in transition over four decades. Exploring themes of change, the role of culture in society, memory, and writing, in a text that combines narrative fiction with literary criticism, philosophical musings, and quotation, Like a Summer Never to Be Repeated is among the most innovative works of modern Arabic literature and a testimony to Mohammed Berrada's position as a leading pioneer.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

162

Publisher

American University in Cairo Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1617971588

ISBN 13

9781617971587

Tales from Dayrut

Short Stories

By: Mohamed Mustagab

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Tales from Dayrut

Short Stories

By: Mohamed Mustagab

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

211

Publisher

American University in Cairo Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1617971731

ISBN 13

9781617971730

Book's by Mohamed Mustagab

Tales from Dayrut

Tales from Dayrut

Clamor of the Lake

Clamor of the Lake

Like a Summer Never to Be Repeated

Like a Summer Never to Be Repeated

Tales from Dayrut

Tales from Dayrut

Username

Password

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email