Cairo: City of Sand (Topographics) (Paperback)

by Maria Golia (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
'a lucid exploration of the city... Golia [offers] ... an intimate and serpentine tour' -- Fortean Times

'a magnificent, multidimensional, eloquent and, above all, intelligent portrait of one of the world's most enigmatic places.' -- Sunday Times, June 2004

Review
"Well-researched, reflective. . . Golia crams her book with anecdotes and personal experience, giving us an intimate picture of an inimitable, modern city."--The Good Book Guide (The Good Book Guide (London) )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Reaktion Books; illustrated edition edition (March 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861891873
• ISBN-13: 978-1861891877
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #552,636 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Introduction to the psyche of Cairenes, March 2, 2005

By	Ahmed Moustafa (Cairo, Egypt) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I grow up in Cairo. I was suprised how the author learned all of that information that she put in the book. The book provides information that one cannot know unless he/she lives long enough with the Cairenes. The book is very interesting. It descibes many aspects of social life in Cairo. The book discusses details about events, such as marriage, Islam, dating, etc. An early, interesting chapter discusses a brief introduction to the history of Cairo.
I think that this book is for a reader who wanna know some information about the behavior and beliefs of Cairnes. The book is easy-to-read and non-academic.
This book may not be very informative for someone who just get information about traveling in Cairo.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reflects Cairo's Magnificent Complexity, March 7, 2005

By	Leila Abu-Saba "The Dove" (California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you know Cairo at all, whether glancingly or in depth, you will be grateful for the richness and detail of Maria Golia's book. No other work on the city captures so much of its unimaginably crowded present. Its past is skillfully woven in, but as Golia notes in her introduction, others have written about Cairo's past. Few outsiders can report so well on the day to day life of this incomprehensibly vast city. True, it's not a tourist's guide, but anyone who loves cities and their history will find this a rewarding text.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, informative overview of Cairo, June 17, 2008

By	Reader "Reader" (Australia) - See all my reviews

This is a lovely and highly informative book. Maria Golia's prose is very readable and equally delightful, her knowledge of Cairo, its people and its history is comprehensive. She loves the city. She doesn't patronize it.

Minor corrections, to an otherwise very accurate book, are on

Page 35, the name of the Egyptian actor Adel IMAM is given as Adel IMAN, twice.

Page 85, the words for 'cemeteries' (plural) and 'dust' (single) in colloquial Egyptian dialect are 'TOE-rub' (the stress on the first syllable) and 'tor-AAb' (the stress is on the second), respectively. It's tempting to argue that they derive from the same three-letter semetic root, but as they stand, they are pronounced differently.

Finally, I want to point out that there is a number of short "Letters from Cairo" (published in 'The New Internationalist') by, and an NPR interview (from early 2003) with M Golia available on the web. All highly recommended.