American University in Cairo Press

Finding love, comfort, and hope amid uncertainty, two young, Egyptian women reveal themselves to one another in this dreamlike and award-winning debut It is during the 2011 Egyptian revolution that Arwa and Mariam meet in a subway station near Cairo University. Arwa has returned from Germany to join the protests, and their chance encounter is to change the course of Mariam’s sheltered existence. They tell each other the stories of their mothers and grandmothers, the histories that have brought them to this point. Mariam was born in Saudi Arabia, and first set foot in Egypt after both her parents were killed in a car accident. Arwa’s mother also died a tragic, early death, and she, traveling in the opposite direction as Mariam, left Egypt to escape. This is a mesmerizing and otherworldly debut novel about finding salvation and finding oneself, despite the anguish and traumas of the past. It pivots on the present moment of Arwa's and Mariam’s unexpected union, and at its heart is a recognition of the women who came before them.

Taha Hussein''s classic autobiographical novel The Days helped usher in the era of modern Arabic writing and remains one of the most influential and best-known works of Arabic literature"It is difficult to overstate Taha Hussein''s contribution to the intellectual renaissance in Egypt during the 20th century."—The GuardianThe monumental three-part autobiography of one of modern Egypt''s greatest writers and thinkers is again available in a single paperback in this classic reissue. The first part, An Egyptian Childhood (1929), is full of the sounds and smells of rural Egypt. It tells of Hussein''s childhood and early education in a small village in Upper Egypt, as he learns not only to come to terms with his blindness but to excel in spite of it and win a place at the prestigious Azhar University in Cairo. The second part, The Stream of Days: A Student at the Azhar (1939), is an enthralling picture of student life in Egypt in the early 1900s, and the record of the growth of an unusually gifted personality. More than forty years later, Hussein published A Passage to France (1973), carrying the story on to his final attainment of a doctorate at the Sorbonne, a saga of perseverance in the face of daunting odds.

A comprehensive account of the Libyan pharaohs of Egypt, who ruled from the tenth through the seventh centuries BC, accessibly written by renowned Egyptologist Aidan DodsonDuring the tenth through the seventh centuries BC, Egypt was ruled by a series of pharaohs of Libyan ancestry, who ranged from Shoshenq I, conqueror of Jerusalem, to individuals so obscure that some may actually be spelling errors. The Libyans had hitherto been enemies of the Egyptians, with conflicts going back into the third millennium BC. Yet during the eleventh century we find Libyan names among members of Egyptian elite families, and early in the next century a pharaoh of Libyan descent ascended the Egyptian throne. There is no evidence of any violent take-over, so it appears likely that ongoing immigration and intermarriage with the Egyptian elites had brought a Libyan line to this point. Although the earlier Libyan pharaohs seem to have maintained the tradition of a unitary Egyptian state, as time went by, Libyan ideas of decentralized control became more prevalent. As a result, we find individuals holding both Libyan and Egyptian titles controlling distinct territories around Egypt, some of whom assumed the names and titles of a pharaoh. Conflict sometimes accompanied this process, with a long civil war fought for the control of southern Egypt and the great religious capital of Thebes. Some degree of central control was imposed with the advent of a further set of rulers from Nubia during the eight century, but a single Egyptian state would not be restored until the middle of the seventh century.The Libyan Pharaohs of Egypt reconstructs the story of this era, covering not only its complex political history, but also its monuments – both for the living and the dead—and its aftermath, including the rediscovery of its kings and monuments in modern times.

A young woman’s search for connection with her estranged father, her family’s past, and the Palestinian homeland she can never visit“Mai Serhan''s writing is unique, sincere, dark, funny, and cuttingly tragic.”—Selma DabbaghMai Serhan lives in Cairo and has never been to Palestine, the country from which her family was expelled in 1948. She is twenty-four years old when one morning she receives a phone call from her estranged father. His health is failing and he might not have long to live, so he asks her to join him in China where he runs a business empire about which Mai knows nothing. Mai agrees to go in the hopes that they will become close, but this strange new country is as unknowable to her as her father. There, the ghosts of the Nakba come to haunt them both. With this grief comes violence, and a tragic death brings a whole new meaning to the word erasure.In a narrative made rich by its layers of fragmentation, as befitting the splintered and disordered existence of exile over generations, this courageous memoir spans Egypt, Lebanon, Dubai, China and, of course, Palestine. It is filled with bitter tragedy and loss and woven through with an understated humor and much grace.

An invaluable guide to more than one hundred of the most commonly used Modern Standard Arabic idiomsIdioms are deeply rooted in their cultural context and as such are both are uniquely tricky and key to competency in a language. With more than 140 of frequently used Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) idioms, this book is a key learning tool for intermediate to advanced learners of the language. Organized by theme into eight chapters, each idiom includes an English translation or equivalent expression and a short bilingual dialogue to show the idiom used in context. Each unit ends with a set of exercises to practice usage and aid in language acquisition. Mastering Modern Standard Arabic Idioms is designed to be a flexible resource, and as such could be adopted in a classroom setting or employed in self-study, and will be of interest to students of language, literature, and culture, as well as to translators and linguists.

"An evocative, unpredictable novel."—Words Without BordersA breathtaking novel of longing, uncertainty, and ultimately of hope, written by an International Prize for Arabic Fiction-winning author and an International Booker-prize winning translatorAzzan is a beekeeper in a rural community in Oman. Devoted to tending his bees and searching for wild hives, he encounters Thamna, a lone shepherd woman, on a mountain slope and is captivated by her and her honey-colored eyes.Across the breathtaking vistas of Oman’s remote mountains and plains, Azzan’s troubled past and present unfold. A disappointment to his family, he turns to drink, and ultimately discovers the healing power of his beekeeping, before an accident in which he loses all.Zahran Alqasmi’s masterful novel thrums forward with a subtle momentum. His lucid, poetic writing conveys a visceral sense of time and place, of the fragile ecologies inhabited by both bees and humans alike, in this intense and compelling novel of loss and hope.