If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English

Book cover of If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English

Book description

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, an Egyptian American woman and a man from the village of Shobrakheit meet at a cafe in Cairo. He was a photographer of the revolution, but now finds himself unemployed and addicted to cocaine, living in a rooftop shack. She is a nostalgic…

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Literary fiction

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Why read it?

1 author picked If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Liz Harmer

Author

Naga’s beautiful, poetic prose is pervaded with an overwhelming sense that things will end very badly.

An Arab-American woman meets a “boy from Shobrakheit,” and the two begin a damaged, damaging romance in a book that’s been described as a “postcolonial novel for the twenty-first century.”

Desire mixes up with more complicated feelings, such as pity and resentment, feelings that stem from their cultural and class differences, and their relationship, told in alternating points-of-view, is soon touched with a threat of violence—and then more than a threat—of violence.

From Liz's list on Eros and Thanatos desire mixed with doom.