A novel of the invasion and occupation of Egypt by Napoleonic France as seen through the eyes of a young Egyptian. The Napoleonic-era French invasion and occupation of Egypt are often seen as the Arab world's first encounter with the military and technological prowess of the West-and it came as a terrible shock. The Turban and the Hat tells the story of those three tumultuous years from the perspective of a young Egyptian living in late-eighteenth-century Cairo. Knowing some French, he works as a translator for the occupiers. He meets their scientists and artists, has an affair with Bonaparte's mistress, and accompanies the disastrous campaign to take Syria, where he witnesses the ravages of the plague and the horrific barbarism of war. He is astonished by the invaders' lies and propaganda, but he finds that much of what he thought he knew about his fellow Egyptians was also an illusion. Convincing in its history but rich in themes that resonate today, The Turban and the Hat is a story of resistance, but also of collaboration, cooperation, and corruption. Sonallah Ibrahim, one of Egypt's foremost novelists, gives us a marvelous account of the Western occupation of an Arab land, one that will resonate with contemporary readers. His portrayal of this tragic-and at times comic-"clash of civilizations" is never didactic, even as it reminds us that so many lessons of history go unlearned.

A coming-of-age story is given a creative twist in this intimate, offbeat, and strangely affecting novel. The young narrator, age 11, lives with his aged father in a disheveled furnished flat in Cairo. Exceptionally attuned to the moods, habits, and silent yearnings of the adults around him, the boy decides to get organized and become an expert on adult behavior. Surreptitiously, he listens in on adult conversations, observes adult mannerisms, and guesses about comments he's not supposed to understand--and then he starts to sneak into neighboring apartments to watch adults napping, copulating, bathing, cooking, and all the other activities normal to their lives.

The year is 1973. An Egyptian historian, Dr. Shukri, pursues a year of non-degree graduate studies in Moscow, the presumed heart of the socialist utopia. Through his eyes, the reader receives a guided tour of the sordid stagnation of Brezhnev-era Soviet life: intra-Soviet ethnic tensions; Russian retirees unable to afford a tin of meat; a trio of drunks splitting a bottle of vodka on the sidewalk; a Kirgiz roommate who brings his Russian girlfriend to live in his four-person dormitory room; black-marketeering Arab embassy officials; liberated but insecure Russian women; and Arab students' debates about the geographically distant October 1973 War. Shukri records all this in the same numbly factual style familiar to fans of Sonallah Ibrahim's That Smell, punctuating it with the only redeeming sources of beauty available: classical music LPs, newly acquired Russian vocabulary, achingly beautiful women, and strong Georgian tea. Based on Ibrahim's own experience studying at the All-Russian Institute of Cinematography in Moscow from 1971 to 1973, Ice offers a powerful exploration of Arab confusion, Soviet dysfunction, and the fragility of leftist revolutionary ideals.

That Smell is Sonallah Ibrahim's modernist masterpiece and one of the most influential novels written in Arabic since WWII. Composed after a five-year term in prison, the semi-autobiographical story follows a recently released political prisoner as he wanders through Cairo, adrift in his native city. Living under house arrest, he tries to write of his tortuous experience, but instead smokes, spies on the neighbors, visits old lovers, and marvels at Egypt's new consumer culture. Published in 1966, That Smell was immediately banned and the print-run confiscated. The original, uncensored version did not appear in Egypt for another twenty years.

For this edition, translator Robyn Creswell has also included an annotated selection of the author's Notes from Prison, Ibrahim's prison diaries--a personal archive comprising hundreds of handwritten notes copied onto Bafra-brand cigarette papers and smuggled out of jail. These stark, intense writings shed unexpected light on the sources and motives of Ibrahim's groundbreaking novel. Also included in this edition is Ibrahim's celebrated essay about the writing and reception of That Smell.

A riveting novel that is both an indictment and an elegy, a second-person memoir of Nasser’s final months in the voice of his former prisoner.   In 1959, at the age of twenty-two, Egyptian novelist Sonallah Ibrahim was imprisoned by Gamal Abdel Nasser’s regime. Over the following five years in prison in Egypt’s Western Desert, Ibrahim kept diaries that he smuggled out on cigarette papers. In this novel, Ibrahim takes up Nasser as a fictional character tied tightly to real events, offering a window into his daily life in his final years. Ibrahim follows Nasser during the War of Attrition and the aftermath of the 1967 war with Israel and looks back on the events of the previous decades. He also chronicles Nasser at his most vulnerable, detailing a more private set of Nasser’s setbacks and defeats: the daily routines of a diabetic suffering from heart trouble in the months before his death. Political events as well as social and economic transformations are narrated through newspaper clippings and archival fragments, painting a portrait of the decline of a man who was once larger than life.  

Sonallah Ibrahim's 2000 masterpiece offers readers a view of twentieth-century world events through the diary pages of his titular character 1950s Cairo: the intersection of conflicting dreams and political destinies. In this classic novel translated for the first time into English, idealistic reporter Rushdy encounters the enchanting Warda and her brother Yaarib at a clandestine leftist meeting. Their fates would be forever linked. Decades after Warda goes missing, Rushdy immerses himself in her diaries in a quest to uncover her whereabouts. The search takes him to the hills of Dhofar, Oman, where he discovers Warda's guerrilla role in a regional uprising and secret involvement in revolutions with echoes around the globe. Piece by revelatory piece, Rushdy uncovers the truth about Warda-and the fiery commitment that drove her to choose the life she lived. Widely acknowledged as a masterpiece by one of Egypt's most important novelists, this is an unforgettable story of intrigue, passion, and revolution.

Writing in an intriguingly symbolic and minimalist style, author Sonallah Ibrahim has been called the Egyptian Kafka. And no wonder. This wry take on Kafka's The Trial revolves around its narrator's attempts to petition successfully the elusive ruling body of his country, known simply as "the committee". Consequences for his actions range from the absurd to the hideous.

In Kafkaesque fashion, Ibrahim offers an unbroken first-person narrative rendered in brief, crisp prose framed by a conspicuous absence of vivid imagery. Furthermore, the petitioner is a man without identity. The ideal anti-hero, he remains, as does his country, unnamed throughout the intricate plot with a locale suggestive of 1970s Cairo.

Considered a major work, The Committee sardonically pierces the inflammatory terrain between ordinary men, unbridled displays of power, and other, broader concerns of the author's native Egypt. The novel's corrosive, shocking conclusion catapults satiric surrealism into a new realm.