OBOC - Egypt

Alaa Al-Aswany was a guest on World Book Club and I remember making a mental note that the Yacoubian Building will be my pick for Egypt and it was. It has to be one of the most popular books from the Arab world and what amazes me is how the book is still published in Egypt. Let me explain - my impression of Egypt is that it is a very conservative country, ruled by an autocracy with not much freedom of expression or a completely independent press and the only outlet for all the underlying suppressed passion/ tension was the football field.

And then here is a book (from an author who is not new to dissent and courage) which doesn't portray a favorable picture of Egypt and also talks in no uncertain terms about many of the taboos in Egyptian society - corruption in political life, homosexuality, police brutality, emergence of extremist Islam and Jihadists, poverty, economic stagnation, brain drain, disenchantment. Maybe my perception of the Egyptian autocracy is misguided, after all the book is still published and widely read in Egypt and everywhere in the Arab world!

The Yacoubian Building which is at the heart of the novel is an actual building that is located in downtown Cairo which the author has fictionalized for his story. We trace the changing face of Egypt over the years through the changing face of the building and its occupants. What was once a luxury accommodation for foreigners and the upper echelons of Egyptian society, after the 1952 revolution transformed into a housing for the military families who typically came from rural areas of Egypt. As the wealthy and educated elite started to leave Egypt following the revolution and the failed promises, the roof of the Yacoubian building which housed 2m X 2m storage rooms became homes of the urban poor who were often migrant workers eking out a living in the city. The roof dwellers form what is equivalent to a slum community in many cities around the developing world

Besides the building itself there are a number of characters whose lives are intertwined with each other and the building and through them we get a glimpse of Egyptian society - Corrupt politicians (Hagg Azzam), disenchanted youths who fall prey to militant Islam (Taha), young women who find that performing sexual favors for their bosses is the only way to hold onto a job (Busayana), fairly open homosexual elites (Hatim) and former members of the ruling class who look back with some fondness on French culture and pre-revolution days (Zaki Bey), migrant workers, small businessmen, hustlers and so on. With so many characters he has still succeeded in adding layers and depth to many of them

The book is definitely a criticism of the one party system that exists in Egypt and also shows the disenchantment of the population with the unfulfilled promises of the revolution. Its treatment of homosexuality is considered ground breaking in Arab culture. Mostly very bleak, the book ends on a hopeful note with the unlikely union of Busayana and Zaki Bey despite their age and rank differences- symbolizing the union of old Egypt with the new one perhaps? Or am I just reading into it too much for allegories? Although I found some sections of the book to be a bit dragging, it was completely worth the effort and I can see why it gets the praise it gets