Description
Tightly plotted and taboo-breaking, this explosive story takes readers to the roots of religious strife where the smallest of sparks can start a bonfire
Nader, an idealistic public prosecutor at the outset of his career, leaves Cairo to start a new posting in rural upper Egypt. On his first night, a mysterious woman named Hoda shows up at his lodgings. She is on the run from an abusive husband and, harboring a dark secret, seeks a new start in this small village and hopes to escape her harrowing past. Nothing is to be easy for Hoda or Nader, and the dramatic circumstances of their first meeting signal the disquiet to come. It is not long before tensions between Copts and Muslims, already on a knife-edge, spiral into a spate of unexplained killings and arson attacks. The locals blame the trouble on the supernatural, and Nader is thrown into a quagmire of sectarian conflict and superstition that no amount of formal training could have prepared him for. His investigations are thwarted at every turn, by uncooperative witnesses and an obstructive police force. As Nader and Hoda each pursue happiness and justice, their parallel journeys struggle against the forces of ignorance, poverty, hatred, and greed. With its echoes of Tawfiq al-Hakim's Diary of a Country Prosecutor, this is a powerful and personal tale of conflict, crime, and upheaval in rural Egypt.Author: Ashraf El-Ashmawi
Publisher: Hoopoe
Published: 10/10/2023
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.63d
ISBN13: 9781649032539
ISBN10: 1649032536
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Literary
- Fiction | Mystery & Detective | International Crime & Mystery
- Fiction | World Literature | Middle East | Egypt & North Africa
About the Author
Ashraf El-Ashmawi is an Egyptian author, judge, and legal scholar who is a regular contributor to newspapers and online publications. The author of eleven critically received novels in Arabic, in 2013 he was longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (the Arabic "Booker") for his novel Toya, in 2014 he won best novel at the Cairo International Book Fair for Barman, and in 2019 he again won best novel at the Bahrain Cultural Forum for Sheepdogs. The House of the Coptic Woman was shortlisted for best novel by the Sawiris Cultural Award Egypt in 2020 and Orphanelli's Auction House was awarded best novel by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture's General Egyptian Book Organization in 2021. His books have been translated into French, German, Japanese, Italian, among other languages, and The Lady of Zamalek was his first novel to be translated into English.
Peter Daniel, a long-term resident of Egypt, has worked as a teacher of Arabic as a foreign language and an Arabic-to-English translator for many years.