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Peter Hessler

The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution Hardcover – May 7, 2019

by Peter Hessler (Author)

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A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

"Extraordinary...Sensitive and perceptive, Mr. Hessler is a superb literary archaeologist, one who handles what he sees with a bit of wonder that he gets to watch the history of this grand city unfold, one day at a time.” —Wall Street Journal

From the acclaimed author of River Town and Oracle Bones, an intimate excavation of life in one of the world's oldest civilizations at a time of convulsive change

Drawn by a fascination with Egypt's rich history and culture, Peter Hessler moved with his wife and twin daughters to Cairo in 2011. He wanted to learn Arabic, explore Cairo's neighborhoods, and visit the legendary archaeological digs of Upper Egypt. After his years of covering China for The New Yorker, friends warned him Egypt would be a much quieter place. But not long before he arrived, the Egyptian Arab Spring had begun, and now the country was in chaos.

In the midst of the revolution, Hessler often traveled to digs at Amarna and Abydos, where locals live beside the tombs of kings and courtiers, a landscape that they call simply al-Madfuna: "the Buried." He and his wife set out to master Arabic, striking up a friendship with their instructor, a cynical political sophisticate. They also befriended Peter's translator, a gay man struggling to find happiness in Egypt's homophobic culture. A different kind of friendship was formed with the neighborhood garbage collector, an illiterate but highly perceptive man named Sayyid, whose access to the trash of Cairo would be its own kind of archaeological excavation. Hessler also met a family of Chinese small-business owners in the lingerie trade; their view of the country proved a bracing counterpoint to the West's conventional wisdom.

Through the lives of these and other ordinary people in a time of tragedy and heartache, and through connections between contemporary Egypt and its ancient past, Hessler creates an astonishing portrait of a country and its people. What emerges is a book of uncompromising intelligence and humanity--the story of a land in which a weak state has collapsed but its underlying society remains in many ways painfully the same. A worthy successor to works like Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon and Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines, The Buried bids fair to be recognized as one of the great books of our time.

Print length

480 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Penguin Press
Publication date

May 7, 2019
Dimensions

6.5 x 1.48 x 9.52 inches
ISBN-10

0525559566
ISBN-13

978-0525559566
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Editorial Reviews

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One of Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2019

“Original, richly layered, and often delightful reporting. Hessler has a sharp sense of humor, a gift for observation, a healthy skepticism, and a knack for using memorable characters and anecdotes to demonstrate larger truths . . . This is what reporting can be at its best: clear-eyed and empathetic, an addition to the historical record.” —New York Review of Books

“Destined to become the title that all first-time visitors to Egypt are urged to pack. . . . Hessler is an extraordinary writer.” —Foreign Affairs

“Egypt’s tragedy has now found a non-fiction writer equal to the task in Peter Hessler . . . What separates him from most other foreign correspondents is a strange alchemy in his writing and storytelling that gives him an ability to spin golden prose from everyday lived experience. . . . [The Buried] is filled with insight both about the cyclical nature of Egyptian politics and what is eternal and unchanging in this most ancient of countries, whose civilization goes back an astonishing, unbroken 7,000 years. The result is a small triumph, one of the best books yet written about the Arab spring.” —The Guardian

“Seen from afar, tectonic political shifts often look as if they consume a society. But have you ever been someplace in the middle of momentous political events and found everyone around you getting on with daily life? Few reporters seem better placed to fathom the complexities of this dynamic—ripples of disquiet permeating routine existence—than Peter Hessler . . . The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution is Mr. Hessler’s closely observed, touching and at times amusing chronicle of this tumultuous time. Drawing both from daily life and from interviews with highly placed political figures, the book is an extraordinary work of reportage, on a par with Anthony Shadid’s Night Draws Near (2005) . . . Sensitive and perceptive, Mr. Hessler is a superb literary archaeologist, one who handles what he sees with a bit of wonder that he gets to watch the history of this grand city unfold, one day at a time.” —Wall Street Journal

“Beautiful and heartbreaking. Readers of his books on China will know that Hessler has a genius for structuring a narrative. Here he has crafted a miraculously coherent arc out of several disparate themes: the political upheaval that accompanied the Arab Spring, the lives of a handful of ordinary Egyptians, and his own education in the language of contemporary Egypt and its ancient archaeology, to name just a few . . . Every page is vivid and engaging, and each chapter packs in surprises . . .The greatest contribution of The Buried to the shelf of English-language books on the Arab Spring is the intimately detailed depictions it provides of a handful of ordinary, politically disengaged Cairenes trying to steer their way through the chaos.” —David D. Kirkpatrick, Literary Review

“At once engrossing and illuminating. . . . Adroitly combining the color and pacing of travel writing and investigative journalism with the tools and insight of anthropological fieldwork and political theory, this stakes a strong claim to being the definitive book to emerge from the Egyptian revolution.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Nuanced and deeply intelligent—a view of Egyptian politics that sometimes seems to look at everything but and that opens onto an endlessly complex place and people.” —Kirkus, starred review

“A fascinating journey . . . This is writing at its best and highly recommended for anyone interested in Egypt, modern or ancient.” —Library Journal, starred review

"Hessler’s gift is stitching the stories of everyday lives into a larger narrative. He creates indelible portraits of his encounters with ordinary Egyptians, from his neighborhood’s garbage collector to his translator, who grapples with being gay in a homophobic society. This book helped me understand a place I hardly knew, one that plays a key role in the ongoing political ferment of the Middle East." —Seattle Times

“In The Buried, Peter Hessler brings to life the secret history of the Arab Spring, masterfully weaving together a memoir of his time in Cairo with the hidden, intimate lives of ordinary Egyptians. With lyrical prose, Hessler introduces us to a side of the Middle East we never see in news accounts: an enterprising garbage collector, a gay man skirting police repression, an Arabic language instructor nostalgic for the country’s socialist past. These stories unfold on the backdrop of Egypt’s 5,000-year-old history, as we learn about the parallels Egyptians draw to their pharaonic past. Witty and deeply humane, The Buried is unlike any other book I’ve read about the Egyptian revolution, and stands as a remarkable testament to the country’s extraordinary history and to the struggle for human freedom.” —Anand Gopal, author of No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Though Afghan Eyes

“Peter Hessler is one of the finest storytellers of his generation. The beauty of his writing is subtle and cumulative—it gets under your skin. After his years in China, Hessler moved with his family to Cairo during the electric, chaotic days of protests in Tahrir Square. Through him, you come to know many Egyptians as he came to know them—casually, intimately, forming deepening ties. And through them you experience Egypt’s turbulent recent history as it was happening, as it felt to live through it.” —Larissa MacFarquhar, author of Strangers Drowning: Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge to Help

“The Buried is the kind of book that you don’t want to end and won’t forget. With the eye of a great storyteller Peter Hessler weaves together history, reporting, memoir, and above all the lives of ordinary people in a beautiful and haunting portrait of Egypt and its Revolution.” —Ben Rhodes, author of The World As It is: A Memoir if the Obama White House

“The Buried is wonderfully impressive, not a conventional travel book at all, but the chronicle of a family's residence in Egypt, in a time of revolution—years of turmoil in this maddening place. And yet Peter Hessler remains unflustered as he learns the language, makes friends, puts up with annoyances (rats, water shortages, mendacity) and delves into the politics of the present and the ancient complexities. It is in all senses archeology—tenacious, revelatory, and humane.” —Paul Theroux

About the Author

Peter Hessler is a staff writer at the New Yorker, where he served as Beijing correspondent from 2000-2007 and Cairo correspondent from 2011-2016. He is also a contributing writer for National Geographic. He is the author of River Town, which won the Kiriyama Book Prize, Oracle Bones, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, Country Driving, and Strange Stones. He won the 2008 National Magazine Award for excellence in reporting, and he was named a MacArthur fellow in 2011.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Press; First Edition (May 7, 2019)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 480 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0525559566
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0525559566
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.6 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.48 x 9.52 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #113,565 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #25 in Egyptian History (Books)
- #84 in Archaeology (Books)
- #222 in Middle Eastern Politics

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4.7 343 ratings

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Peter Hessler

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Peter Hessler is a correspondent for the New Yorker and a contributor to National Geographic. He is the author of ORACLE BONES and RIVER TOWN, which won the 2001 Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize. In 2011 he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation 'genius grant'. Born in Columbia, Missouri, he now lives in Cairo with his wife and daughters.

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Blake West

Well written, but lacking motion

Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2023

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Hessler is a great writer, and there are lots of interesting anecdotes throughout. But there isn't much of a consistent thread or story that ties it all together. So it feels kinda static. Like just a portrait, and not a movie. Wish he had more of a story or argument.

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Ayman Farahat

Wonderful read but loopholes in understanding of the culture cast doubts about the quality..

Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2020

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I grew up in Cairo not far from where the author lived in Zamalek. As such I have mixed feelings: on the one hand the book is a wonderful read, on the other hand there are enough loopholes in the authors’ understanding of the culture and language to cast serious doubts about the scholarly quality of the work.

The book is a wonderful read and I really enjoyed the two interwinding stories; the ancient Egypt (specially Akhenaten) and the modern Egypt and the Arab Spring. The author brings interesting perspective and draws insightful parallels. The author tries to frame his own experience in the context of established research. For example (and much to his credit) he visited one of Cairo’s inner-city slums, meet with the residents, and describes how his experience relate to the general patterns as described in David Sims work on the Cairo Slums (Al Ashwaiaat) .

However, as the author acknowledged, he started learning Arabic a few months before he travelled to Egypt and spent the better part of five years in Egypt. In that vein, the book is best viewed as someone’s experience living in Egypt during a very eventual five years. It takes more than five years to produce a “astonishing portrait of a country and its people”. One needs a lifetime of scholarly work and peer review to achieve that fate.

Some Loopholes/misunderstanding of the culture and language.

1) May 15th bridge was named after the 1948 war,=> no it was named after Sadat’s alleged correctional "revolution" (that's what he called it).
2) Nasser died of cancer, no he did not. He died of heart disease.
3) Canal is British controlled, it was French and the British government bough that Egyptian shares.
4) Sayyid can haul more than seventy pounds. I am not sure where the precise figure came from did the author actually weight the canvas sack?
5) Ful is fried beans. This is not accurate, it’s a is a stew of cooked fava beans.
6) The author’s superficial understanding of Arabic is highlighted by his translation of Morsi’s statement “Cleanliness comes from faith” . The Arabic verse that Morsi quoted is “ Al nazafa min el Iman” which means that “Cleanliness is part of faith”. Again, the goal is not to pick on specific sentences but rather to make a point: if the syntax is flawed (the facts) the semantics (the message of the book) are suspect.
7) The author does not consider alternate explanations. A case in point is the secular April 6th protestors assembling in front of the Mustapha Mahmood Mosque. It is certainly possible that the picked the location because the mosque was the only recognizable landmark. An alternate explanation is that the mosque was in the middle of a square and that the square not the mosque was the identifying landmark. It very common in Egypt to construct mosques in or around central landmarks (Rabaa, Al- Qaed Ibrahim Square,.. ).

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jannie

Engrossing and enjoyable read on Egypt during the Arab Spring

Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2020

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If, like me, your grasp of the events and implications of the Arab Spring was fuzzy even as it was being reported, this is the book that not only explains those events but describes daily life in Egypt so that the events make sense.

Most of all this is a story of Egypt. Not the Egypt of the wealthy but the Egypt of neighborhoods and every day people. Hessler and his wife and two young twin girls live in an apartment on Zamalek, an island in the Nile. He befriends the local trash collector, Sayyid, who provides great insights into Egypt’s culture, which is not one of (western) systems but of people. We get a look at family structure, the many strictures governing women, the legal system (?), the role of Islam, treatment of lgbtq persons, and just generally, how things really work.

One of my favorite stories concerned the new ring road. Sayyid and his family lived in a poor neighborhood (an ashwaiyat) and because these informal settlements weren’t recognized by the government, they didn’t build any on or off ramps for the neighborhood to use the ring road. The solution? Build the ramps yourselves. The neighborhood hired designers and builders and simply built their own ramps. No one said a word.

This is an absorbing read in which you care for the individuals and families who are described and in the meantime you learn history, both the recent past as well as the ancient.

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Seth Luxenberg

Brings modern and ancient Egypt to life

Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2019

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Another masterpiece from Hessler whose insight brings both modern and ancient Egypt to life.

There are many brilliant passages throughout the book, but one about a Chinese plastic factory in Upper Egypt captures Hessler's range and insight.

"...Every time I visited, I thought: Here in Egypt, home to more than ninety million people, where Western development workers and billions of dollars of aid have poured in for decades, the first plastic recycling center in the south is a thriving business that employs thirty people, reimburses others for reducing landfill waste, and earns a significant profit. So why was it established by two lingerie-fueled Chinese migrants, one of them illiterate and the other with a fifth-grade education."

I could say the same thing about this book. With all of the journalists and scholars writing about Egypt for decades, why does the best book about Egypt come from a journalist who built his career writing about China? Hessler writes in 3-d about a range of topics I'm used to reading about in 2-d from journalists, authors and scholars. I learned more about a wide range of topics including Egyptian history, the Arabic language, the Muslim Brotherhood, daily life in Cairo, Egyptian Politics, the Arab Spring, Islam and the experience of Sephardic Jews in Egypt than I would from dozens of other books on those very topics. All of this in an entertaining read with moving profiles of regular Egyptians. Truly a masterpiece.

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Evlyne Laurin

Heartfelt writing by someone who called Egypt home for five years

Reviewed in Canada on October 4, 2020

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I strongly recommend this book. Hessler account is genuine and written from years spent in Cairo where he sparked friendships with people who many would have overlooked or ignored. Read in retrospect of my time in Cairo, I wish I had this book as a companion to make me understand some of the fascinating aspects of that city and of Egypt. The stories he writes about are well documented, and show deep interests and research. Quick to read and a must for anybody who has any interest in the Arab Spring in Egypt or wants to get an understanding of the Cairo/Egyptian inherent contradictions.

One person found this helpful

Stuart Williams

An outsider's insights

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 27, 2020

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As a long-time fan, I can say that this book is well up to Peter Hessler's usual high standards. As before, he combines insights into the distant past with the experiences of someone living in the turbulent present. We get to know Manu, Sayyid and Rifaat as real people, with their reactions to the public and private events dominating their lives. I was baffled by the review which complained that there were many more facets to Cairo - of course there are: no one person could write a single book about London or Beijing or Rio. Instead, be grateful for a perceptive and humane take on the Mother of the World.

Manu Vishwanath

A Beautiful Read

Reviewed in Canada on July 26, 2020

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Peter Hessler turns his eye towards a new country, and in classic Hessler style delves deep into the very character of Egypt, using his keen observational prowess to capture a sense of what subaltern Egyptians were thinking and feeling as their country shifted around them, while also taking a deep dive into the history of Egypt. He ties the two streams of thought together to create beautifully observed portrait of a time and place.

Christopher

An intimate glimpse at a society at a particular moment in its history

Reviewed in Canada on December 26, 2019

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I've been a fan of Hessler since his China reporting days. Like his writing on China, this collection of reporting projects tied together be a personal narrative is both really enjoyable, and takes the time to show a more intimate depiction of Egypt at a very particular moment in its history. I found it quite unlike the other reporting I've read on the area and a welcome supplement to more academic/hard-nosed reporting, without ever seeming fluffy. Highly recommended.

One person found this helpful

Crazycatlady

Interesting account of Cairo in times of unrest

Reviewed in Canada on December 13, 2020

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Peter Hessler is always good. Especially enjoyed his account of his friendship with the trash collector.

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