3.5
The Automobile Club of Egypt
ByPublisher Description
In British-occupied Egypt, on the eve of the 1952 revolution, respected landowner Abd el-Aziz Gaafar has fallen on hard times. Bankrupt, he moves his family to Cairo and takes a menial job at the Automobile Club, a luxurious lodge for its European members, where Egyptians appear only as fearful servants. When Abd el-Aziz’s pride gets the better of him and he stands up for himself, he is subjected to a corporal punishment that ultimately kills him—leaving two of his sons obliged to work in the Club.
As the nation teeters on the brink of change, both servants and masters are subsumed by social upheaval, and the Egyptians of the Automobile Club face a choice: to live safely but without dignity as servants, or to risk everything and fight for their rights. Exuberant and powerfully moving, The Automobile Club of Egypt is an essential work of social criticism from one of the Arab world’s greatest literary voices.
As the nation teeters on the brink of change, both servants and masters are subsumed by social upheaval, and the Egyptians of the Automobile Club face a choice: to live safely but without dignity as servants, or to risk everything and fight for their rights. Exuberant and powerfully moving, The Automobile Club of Egypt is an essential work of social criticism from one of the Arab world’s greatest literary voices.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Automobile Club of Egypt Reviews
3.5
“1952. British-occupied Egypt.
Abd el-Aziz Gaafar has gone bankrupt and moves his family to Cairo to start over. It is the eve of revolution and he gains employment at the Automobile Club. A place for white wealthy Europeans who treat their staff like servants.
Abd and his family navigates this new life and changing world with more failure than success. Everything is a struggle. Morals are tested. Do they live as low class servants but are safe, or fight for freedom with no guarantee they or the rest of their family survive.
This was a hard read.
Long, tedious, and often times heartbreakingly sad.
But written well, an important story. A story of social criticism told by an Arab author.”
About Alaa Al Aswany
Alaa Al Aswany is the author of The Yacoubian Building, which was long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2006 and was the best-selling novel in the Arab world for more than five years; Chicago, named by Newsday as the best translated novel of 2006; The Automobile Club of Egypt; and the story collection Friendly Fire. He has received numerous awards internationally, including the Bashrahil Prize for the Arabic novel, the Kavafis Award from Greece and the Premio Grinzane Cavour from Italy. He was recently named by the London Times as one of the best fifty authors to have been translated into English over the last fifty years.
Other books by Alaa Al Aswany
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