Overview

A Notable African Book of 2023 (Brittle Paper) 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.

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9781649032546

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ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE HOUSE OF THE COPTIC WOMAN: Captivating yet painful, this story unfolds like a beautiful mosaic around the entrance of an abandoned palace. --Ibrahim Abdel Meguid, author of Clouds Over Alexandria This masterpiece will remain one of the best Arabic novels of the past fifty years and it shall live for another fifty years. --Amad This excellent book shows incredible courage . . . fast-paced and very realistic. The novel is a cry against injustice. --Shorouk Ashraf El-Ashmawi breaks down the three deep-seated taboos in Arab writing: religion, sex, and politics. --Reuters (Arabic edition) Full of pain, tears, and blood, as well as the bitterness of broken dreams, this book fires a warning shot, drawing our attention to the absence of justice, law, and freedom. --al-Ahram [A] creative testimony to one of the darkest, most bitter chapters in modern history. --al-Masry al-Youm PRAISE FOR THE LADY OF ZAMALEK: A grand family drama set in a society at once strange and familiar, rife with surprise revelations that keep the reader fully engaged. . . .It deserves to be a bestseller. --Washington Independent Review of Books There's something very compelling about opening a book to read about a place you've never visited before, from the eyes of an author who knows it well. --LitReactor Set in the confines of one toxic family as its members, over decades, perpetually attempt to outmaneuver one another, the narrative creates a sense of vicious hopelessness. In the family, as, it's implied, the country around them, this cycle swallows all; even acts of extreme insurrection feed back into a negative cycle. --LitHub The sweep of Egyptian history and the portrait of class, social norms, and values are fascinating. --Historical Novels Review A brilliantly spun tale. . . playing with politics and powerful people. El-Ashmawi paints a story where money comes and goes, power changes hands, and where both can disappear in an instant. --Arab News A bold attempt to reimagine not only the transformations of the Zamalek district of Cairo, but also those of the Egyptian nation itself. --al-Dostoor Ashraf El-Ashmawy holds a scalpel to dissect the classes of Egyptian society over more than half a century. --al-Youm al-Sabe'

Author Information

Ashraf El-Ashmawi is an Egyptian author, judge, and legal scholar. He is a regular contributor to newspapers and online publications. He has written eleven novels that have been critically received: longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction; best novel at the Cairo International Book Fair; and winner of best novel at the Bahrain Cultural Forum. His books have been translated into multiple languages and The House of the Coptic Woman is his second novel to be translated into English, following The Lady of Zamalek. 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.

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