A Field Guide to the Street Names of Central Cairo - Softcover

Davies, Humphrey; Lababidi, Lesley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9774168569 ISBN 13: 9789774168567

Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press, 2018

Synopsis

The map of a city is a palimpsest of its history. In Cairo, people, places, events, and even dates have lent their names to streets, squares, and bridges, only for those names often to be replaced, and then replaced again, and even again, as the city and the country imagine and reimagine their past. The resident, wandering boulevards and cul-de-sacs, finds signs; the reader, perusing novels and histories, finds references. Who were ʿAbd el-Khaleq Sarwat Basha or Yusef el-Gindi that they should have streets named after them? Who was Nubar Basha and why did his street move from the north of the city to its center in 1933? Why do older maps show two squares called Bab el-Luq, while modern maps show none? Focusing on the part of the city created in the wake of Khedive Ismail’s command, given in 1867, to create a “Paris on the Nile” on the muddy lands between medieval Cairo and the river, A Field Guide to the Street Names of Cairo lists more than five hundred current and three hundred former appellations. Current street names are listed in alphabetical order, with an explanation of what each commemorates and when it was first recorded, followed by the same for its predecessors. An index allows the reader to trace streets whose names have disappeared or that have never achieved more than popular status. This is a book that will satisfy the curiosity of all, be they citizens, long-term residents, or visitors, who are fascinated by this most multi-layered of cities and wish to understand it better.

About this title

About the Author

Humphrey Davies is the translator of a number of Arabic novels, including The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany (AUC Press, 2004). He has twice been awarded the Saif Ghobash–Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation.

Lesley Lababidi is the author of Cairo Practical Guide (AUC Press, 2011, 17th ed.), Cairo’s Street Stories: Exploring the City’s Statues, Squares, Bridges, Gardens, and Sidewalk Cafés (AUC Press, 2008), and Cairo: The Family Guide (AUC Press, 4th ed., 2010). An active and well-traveled blogger, she currently lives between Cairo, Beirut, and Lagos.

Edition details

• Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9774168569
• ISBN 13: 9789774168567
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 252