Poor: A Nubian Novel (Modern Arabic Literature (Paperback)) - Softcover

Ali, Idris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9774166272 ISBN 13: 9789774166273

Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press, 2013

Synopsis

“This is your last day. Be strong. Don’t hesitate. Cut and run. An exit with no return.”
Idris Ali’s confessional novel opens with these words, spoken on an unbearably hot August afternoon in downtown Cairo, where the Nubian narrator has just decided, once and for all, to end his life. Delirious and thirsty, he wanders around venting his resentments large and small, his sexual frustrations, and his sense of powerlessness in the face of unremitting injustice. He seeks to expunge his failed life in the Nile: the river that had been the life blood of his country for millennia, and that―with Egypt’s new dam―now drowns Nubia, flinging her dispossessed sons north and south into exile. Many years ago, the narrator was one of those sons, fleeing flood and famine only to arrive in Cairo, penniless and shoeless, in time to see it go up in flames, the old regime overthrown by “the men in tanks.”
Poor is the story of a life of hardship, adversity, and emotional starvation. It is also the story of opportunities squandered and hopes traded away for nothing―of a life lived, at times, all too poorly.

About this title

About the Author

Idris Ali (1940–2010), one of Egypt’s leading Nubian writers, was the author of three short story collections and six novels, including Dongola (AUC Press, 2006). Self-taught in literature, he attended the Religious Institute of al-Azhar.



Elliott Colla is associate professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at Georgetown University. He has translated a number of Arabic novels, including Ibrahim Aslan’s The Heron and Ibrahim al-Koni’s Gold Dust (AUC Press, 2007, 2008).

Edition details

• Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9774166272
• ISBN 13: 9789774166273
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 220