Being Abbas El Abd [Hardcover]

Ahmed Alaidy (Author), Humphrey Davies (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 9774160045 | ISBN-13: 978-9774160042 | Publication Date: October 19, 2006

'What is madness?' asks the narrator of Ahmed Alaidy's jittery, funny, and angry new novel, Being Abbas el Abd. Assuring readers that they are about to find out, the narrator takes us on his subsequent itinerary through the insanity of present-day Cairo: in and out of minibuses, malls, and crash pads. Despite sniper fire from multiple sources (traffic cops, buxom but inaccessible co-eds, minibus barkers drumming belly-dance rhythms on the paneling of their vehicles, and others) the narrator navigates the city's pinball machine of social life with tolerable efficiency, and is ever ready with a withering response. In the interstices of his grouchy, chain-smoking, pharmaceutically-oriented, twenty-something life, however, lurk characters such as his elusive Uncle Awni, a well-known psychiatrist now on an ever-extending visit to America. And then there's Abbas, the narrator's best friend who, while delivering mordant homilies on life and society ("We will survive only when we ve turned our museums into public lavatories"), surfaces at critical moments to drive our hero into uncontrollably multiplying difficulties. For instance, there's the ticklish situation with the simultaneous blind-dates Abbas has set up for him in coffee-shops on different levels of a Cairo mall with two girls both called Hind. With friends like Abbas, what paranoiac needs enemies? Sharing the intensity of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club and the hip sensibility of Douglas Coupland's Generation X, Ahmed Alaidy's work pushes the limits of written Arabic, developing private meanings and personal rhythms that mirror the weft and warp of the narrator's mind and revel in every linguistic register from ironic high Classical Arabic to the ingenious abuse of the streets via the hip colloquial of Egypt's 'what-have-I-got-to-lose' generation. A literary sensation in its original Arabic edition, Being Abbas el Abd heralds the arrival of a major new voice in Arabic literature.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Being Abbas el Abd is packed with ideas and issues, tackling identity and, especially, adaptation to the contemporary world. -- The Complete Review

About the Author

AHMED ALAIDY was born in 1974, studied marketing at Cairo University, and has worked as a scriptwriter on quiz shows and for the cinema, and as a book designer. He has written satirical stories for young people and currently writes a political comic strip for an Egyptian weekly. Alaidy has participated in international writers' programs at Iowa University and Hong Kong Baptist University. He has previously published a long short story; Being Abbas el Abd is his first novel. HUMPHREY DAVIES earned his doctorate in Near Eastern Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the translator of Thebes at War by Naguib Mahfouz (AUC Press 2003) and The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany (AUC Press 2004).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: AUC Press (October 19, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9774160045
• ISBN-13: 978-9774160042
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #950,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Egyptian novelist, born on December 24, 1974. He is the author of the novel Being Abbas El Abd (2006) , (An Takoun Abbas El Abd) (2003). He studied marketing at Cairo University, and has worked as a scriptwriter on quiz shows and for the cinema, and as a writer of satirical stories for young people and a book designer. He wrote a political comic strip ,and poems for an Egyptian opposition weekly newspaper.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unlike anything else, except for maybe some things, October 30, 2006

By 

J. R. Westcott - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Being Abbas El Abd (Hardcover)

I highly recommend this new novel out of Cairo. Written by an Iowa Writers Center graduate and so dedicated to his mentor there Chuck Palahniuk, it is a cubist portrait of a mind losing its way--set in the cafe culture of modern Egypt. Dizzying and long-lasting.