Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Zayni Barakat

Zayni Barakat

Al-Ghitani, Gamal
Abdel Wahab, Farouk
Said, Edward W.

Paperback

General FictionHistorical FictionLiterary Fiction

ISBN10: 9774248724
ISBN13: 9789774248726
Publisher: American University in Cairo Press
Published: Sep 15 2004
Pages: 266
Weight: 0.65
Height: 0.60 Width: 4.90 Depth: 7.70
Language: English

From one of Egypt's greatest contemporary writers, a historical novel which succeeds brilliantly (Robert Irwin, Times Literary Supplement)

In the course of my long travels I have never seen a city so devastated. After a long time I ventured out into the streets. Death, cold and heavy, hung in the air. Walls have no value here, doors have been eliminated. No one is certain that they will see another day.

This historical novel, first published in Arabic in 1974, is set in early-seventeenth century Mamluk Cairo. It traces the career of Zayni Barakat ibn Mousa as Cairo's puritanically moral and ruthless governor, who employs several corps of spies and informers to rule the city. Gamal al-Ghitani uses various narrative devices including diary extracts, police reports, legal decrees, first-person narratives, and religious discourses, which, together with oblique references to the Cairo of Nasser, give the novel the dimensions of a powerful political and historical fable.

Also from

Al-Ghitani, Gamal

View All

Also in

Literary Fiction

View All