Being Abbas el Abd

Being Abbas el Abd

by HumphreyDavies (Translator), Ahmed Alaidy (Author)

Synopsis

What is madness asks the narrator of Ahmed Alaidy's jittery, funny, and angry new novel, Being Abbas el Abd . Assuring readers that they are about to find out, the narrator takes us on his subsequent itinerary through the insanity of present-day Cairo - in and out of minibuses, malls, and crash pads. Sharing the intensity of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club and the hip sensibility of Douglas Coupland's Generation X, Ahmed Alaidy's work pushes the limits of written Arabic, developing private meanings and personal rhythms that mirror the weft and warp of the narrator's mind and revel in every linguistic register from ironic high Classical Arabic to the ingenious abuse of the streets via the hip colloquial language of Egypt's what-have-I-got-to-lose generation. A literary sensation in its original Arabic edition, Being Abbas el Abd heralds the arrival of a major new voice in Arabic literature.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 132
Publisher: Arabia Books Ltd
Published: 29 Oct 2008

ISBN 10: 1906697051
ISBN 13: 9781906697051

Media Reviews
'A cult novel based in Cairo's shopping malls described as a 'Chuck Palahniuk-inspired rollercoaster ride through the insanity of Cairo.' Ahmed Alaidy, a 36-year-old former scriptwriter is a great chronicler of the reality of day-to-day life in Egypt.' Voyager 201009
Author Bio
Ahmed Alaidy was born in 1974, studied marketing at Cairo University, and has worked as a scriptwriter on quiz shows and for the cinema, and as a book designer. He has written satirical stories for young people and currently writes a political comic strip for an Egyptian weekly. Alaidy has participated in international writers' programs at The University of Iowa and Hong Kong Baptist University. He has previously published a long short story; Being Abbas el Abd is his first novel.