The Automobile Club of Egypt - Hardcover

Alaa Aswany

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0857862197 ISBN 13: 9780857862198

Publisher: Canongate Books, 2016

Synopsis

Inside the walls of the Automobile Club of Egypt two very different worlds collide - Cairo's European elite and the Egyptian staff who wait on them. The servants, a squabbling, humorous and deeply human group, live in a perpetual state of fear under the tyrannical rule of Alku. When Abd el-Aziz Gaafar becomes the target of Alku's cruelty and his pride gets the better of him, a devastating act sends ripples through his family. Soon, the Gaafars are drawn into the turbulent politics of the club - both public and private - and servants and masters are subsumed by Egypt's social upheaval. Egyptians both inside and outside the Automobile Club will all face a stark choice: to live safely without dignity, or to fight for their rights and risk everything.

About this title

Review:

"Myriad colourful details, intertwining narratives, and dramatic cliffhangers form an earthy, entertaining contrast to the novel's sober preoccupations - namely, the human spirit's capacity to both transcend and be crushed by oppressive systems " (Publisher's Weekly, Pick of the Week)

"Al Aswany is a humane, perceptive, evocative storyteller . . . A master observer of the human condition, unblinking but sympathetic, and unputdownable" (Literary Review)

"A wonderful storyteller" (Spectator)

"Among the best writers in the Middle East today . . . Al Aswany has his own magic" (Guardian)

"

Praise for The Yacoubian Building:

The stories in this novel are beautifully, simply told - the characters are alive from page one

" (Sunday Times)

"Rich and engaging" (Daily Mail)

"An intriguing and highly charged novel . . . Alaa Al Aswany's eponymous structure is a microcosm of modern Egyptian society . . . A superbly crafted feat of storytelling" (TASH AW Daily Telegraph)

"Bewitching . . . a comic yet sympathetic novel about the vagaries of the human heart" (New York Times Book Review)

"A superbly crafted feat of storytelling" (Sunday Telegraph)

"A sharp, humorous novel" (CAROLINE MOORHEAD Spectator)

"There are many stories here. The book is elaborate to bursting point, but always controlled, always whole. It is as juicy and satisfying as a shiny apple, its taste both strange and familiar, compassionate and bitter" (The Times)

"Fabulous, acutely observed story of human foibles, full of vivid scenes and extraordinary characters" (Mail on Sunday)

"With its parade of big-city characters, both ludicrous and tender, its warm heart and political indignation, it belongs to a literary tradition that goes back to the 1840s, to Eugene Sue and Charles Dickens . . . The plotting is neat, the episodes are funny and sad, and there are deaths and weddings aplenty" (Guardian)

"Addictively readable" (Independent)

"Absorbing" (Observer)

"Bewitching" (Scotsman)

"

Praise for Chicago:

Brilliant . . . Al Aswany is like an Egyptian Anne Tyler

" (Sunday Times) --Publisher's Weekly

"A powerful, political page-turner" (Daily Mail) --Daily Mail

"A masterpiece, the warmest and finest and most involving Egyptian novel in the last thirty years" (Open Letters Monthly) --Open Letters Monthly

Book Description:

From the bestselling author of The Yacoubian Building comes a novel bursting at the seams with Egyptian life

'Among the best writers in the Middle East today . . . Al Aswany has his own magic' Guardian

About this edition

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0857862197
• ISBN 13: 9780857862198
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 480