The Cairo House: A Novel

by Samia Serageldin

Overview

A work that depicts the glamourous Egypt of the pashas and King Farouk, the police state of the colonels who seized power in 1952, the post-Sadat years and the rise of fundamentalism. It is a study of family and culture in transition and crisis, exploring the ambiguities of status and loyalty.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815606734
Publisher:	Syracuse University Press
Publication date:	09/01/2000
Series:	Arab American Writing
Edition description:	1 ED
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.96(d)

About the Author

Samia Serageldin was raised trilingual in Egypt, pursued graduate studies at London University, where she earned her MS in Politics, and immigrated to the United States in the eighties. She is also the author of The Naqib's Daughter and Love is Like Water and Other Stories.

Editorial Reviews

Having grown up in an affluent, land-owning family in Cairo, Egypt, during the reign of King Faruk and the pashas, Gigi finds her life changed dramatically when the old rule is taken over by Nasser and then by Sadat. Her family is under sequestration order and her personal freedom even more limited than usual. She enters a loveless, prearranged marriage and bears a son, Tarek, whom she must leave when she goes into exile in France. Eventually, she divorces, remarries, and moves to New Hampshire, returning home after ten years to visit the family and try to make amends to Tarek. Using a beautiful prose style, Serageldin (Duke Univ.; Holidays in France) makes Gigi's problems vivid and real. This semi-autobiographical novel, which the author wrote in English, is fascinating and highly entertaining. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries, particularly those with readership interested in modern Egyptian or Middle Eastern culture.--Lisa Rohrbaugh, East Palestine Memorial P.L., OH Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

The postwar history of Egypt is skillfully woven into this evocative first novel's portrayal of a wealthy Cairo family's susceptibility to the winds of political change. The instability that plagues its protagonist—an intelligent young woman trapped in an unhappy marriage and compelled to wander ceaselessly from one continent to another—also afflicts an eminent "Pasha" and his kindred, whose comfortable lives are destroyed by the persecutions of their powerful enemy, "clinically paranoid and increasingly irrational and dangerous" President Nasser. Serageldin's richly observed study of a family and culture in transition and crisis succeeds both as ironical Proustian reminiscence and as a telling exploration of the ambiguities of status, loyalty, and belonging.

Kirkus Reviews

Serageldin's richly observed study of family and culture in transition and crisis succeeds both as ironical Proustian reminiscence and as a telling exploration of the ambiguities of status, loyalty, and belonging.-- "Kirkus Reviews"

Using a beautiful prose style, Serageldin makes Gigi's problems vivid and real... Fascinating and entertaining.-- "Library Journal"

From the Publisher