Books of the Month

'The Yacoubian Building' by Alaa Al Aswany

This book has caused something of a sensation. If, like me, it's only just made it onto your radar, it's well worth finding out what all the fuss is about.

Dentist turned novelist Alaa Al Aswany (below, right) has centred his novel on the real building in Cairo where he opened his first practice. The characters in this ensemble piece, however, are all fictitious. Drawn from all aspects of society, we meet radicals and fundamentalists, homosexuals and sleazy bosses, the rich and the dirt poor. The novel offers a glimpse into
lives which criss-cross and interconnect in a variety of ways.

What struck me is how clever the writing is. Al Aswany opens the book with such rich, warm descriptions of his characters and their busy lives that the reader feels instantly drawn in to a world of bustling activity, love, and humour. But gradually, without us realising it, each storyline becomes more serious and more politicised, so that far from it turning out like a Cairo equivalent of Tales of the City, The Yacoubian Building is an unflinching portrait of the complexities of modern Egyptian society. Al Aswany shows us the inevitable corruption that Hagg Muhammad Azzam has to engage in when he decides to go into politics, and he shows us what happens to the young, hopeful teenager, Tahar el Shazli, when he's prevented from achieving his dream and falls in with a group of fundamentalists at university. And he also shows us several sides of love - the covert and self-destructive, the one-sided and selfish, and the unexpected and delightful.

If you've heard any of the recent hype about Arabic fiction in translation, and fancy sticking a toe into the water, you could make no better start than this. The Yacoubian Building is well written, thought-provoking, and - like all the best literature - decidedly bittersweet.

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