The Yacoubian Building A Novel
The Yacoubian Building A Novel
Paperback
Rs 1279
Delivery in 1-3 weeks
About the Book
This controversial bestselling novel in the Arab world reveals the political corruption, sexual repression, religious extremism, and modern hopes of Egypt today. All manner of flawed and fragile humanity reside in the Yacoubian Building, a once-elegant temple of Art Deco splendor now slowly decaying in the smog and bustle of downtown Cairo: a fading aristocrat and self-proclaimed "scientist of women"; a sultry, voluptuous siren; a devout young student, feeling the irresistible pull toward fundamentalism; a newspaper editor helplessly in love with a policeman; a corrupt and corpulent politician, twisting the Koran to justify his desires. These disparate lives careen toward an explosive conclusion in Alaa Al Aswany's remarkable international bestseller. Teeming with frank sexuality and heartfelt compassion, this book is an important window on to the experience of loss and love in the Arab world. The Yacoubian Building A Novel By Alaa Al Aswany HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Copyright ? 2006 Alaa Al Aswany All right reserved. ISBN: 0060878134 Chapter One The distance between Baehler Passage, where Zaki Bey el Dessouki lives, and his office in the Yacoubian Building is not more than a hundred meters, but it takes him an hour to cover it each morning as he is obliged to greet his friends on the street. Clothingand shoe-store owners, their employees (of both sexes), waiters, cinema staff, habitues of the Brazilian Coffee Stores, even doorkeepers, shoeshine men, beggars, and traffic cops--Zaki Bey knows them all by name and exchanges greetings and news with them. Zaki Bey is one of the oldest residents of Suleiman Basha Street, to which he came in the late 1940s after his return from his studies in France and which he has never thereafter left. To the residents of the street he cuts a well-loved, folkloric figure when he appears before them in his three-piece suit (winter and summer, its bagginess hiding his tiny,
All Editions
Paperback, 6th Edition
ISBN13: 9780060878139
Harper Perennial, 2006
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