During the 1956 Suez Crisis, life in Alexandria goes on. Railroad workers and their families live in the low income housing of el Masakin, but some of them take us on forays into the other, cosmopolitan Alexandria, whose European denizens are departing in droves. Combining historical fact with fiction, and the mundane with the fantastical, this novel weaves a multilayered text of their stories. Glossary, 419pp, EGYPT. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO.

Now available in paperback. Semi autobiographical novel tracing the life of the daughter of a politically prominent, land owning Egyptian family. Following a period in exile she returns in an attempt to reconcile her past and present. ix, 233pp, USA. SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 0815607938

Traces three generations of a tyrannical Muslim patriarch in Cairo during Britain's occupation of Egypt in the early decades of the twentieth century. EVERYMAN, 1857152484

A novel following Nahid's journey of self discovery and liberty. BNS, 248pp, EGYPT. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO, 9774247876

A collection of short stories by one of the Arab world's most inventive writers. 116pp, UK. HEINEMANN AFRICAN WRITERS' SERIES.

Latest collection of short stories by the Egyptian Nobel laureate. Translated from the Arabic by Raymond Stock. Glossary, 124pp, EGYPT. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO.

A 12-year-old boy returns from his school in Cairo to find his village torn by feud and fear. A corrupt official has ordered the peasants to irrigate their fields in five days, instead of the customary ten - a demand which threatens to disrupt the whole life of this small community. It takes many attempts - some disastrous, others comical - before they join forces and stand against their oppressors. This novel, set in the 1930s, was first published in 1954, two years after the Egyptian revolution. Translated from the Arabic by Desmond Stewart. 251pp, UK. SAQI BOOKS.

Reveals the underlying hypocrisy of a male-dominated religious state, and raises awareness of the insufferable predicament of women in a society which will ulti-mately self-destruct. First published in 1988. 202pp, UK. SAQI BOOKS, 0863563961

New edition. Zakeya hoes the stony fields on the banks of the Nile, each day as relentless and unchanging as the last. But when her two pretty nieces fall prey to the lust of the local mayor, a crude a petty tyrant, his cheating schemes provoke Zakeya into a startling act of revenge. vi, 138pp, UK. ZED BOOKS.

In these selected stories from her collections Aisha and Sandpiper, Ahdaf Soueif writes about love and displacement in prose that is delicately nuanced and acutely observed. These are achingly lyrical stories, resonant and richly woven. But they always retain an edginess as they explore areas of tension where women and men are ensnared by cultural and social mores and prescribed notions of love, where the place you are is not the place you want to be. 192pp, UK. BLOOMSBURY.

First of the writer's pharaonic novels, written early in his career. BNS, 168pp, EGYPT. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO, 9774248066

Novel set in an Egyptian Coptic Christian Community. Layla's story has as its backdrop the revolution, Nasser's rise to power and the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Translated by Melissa Marcus. Glos, v, 157pp, USA. AFRICA WORLD PRESS.

The unnamed narrator of this novel is an Egyptian journalist in a self imposed exile in Europe after conflict with the management of his newspaper and a divorce from his wife. BNS, 264pp, EGYPT. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO.

In this rich novel El-Saadawi dares anew to confront major issues and questions surrounding a woman's role and position in a repressive, patriarchal order. 134pp, UK. SAQI BOOKS, 0863563376

2001 paperback

In 1900 Lady Anna Winterbourne travels to Egypt where she falls in love with Sharif, an Egyptian Nationalist committed to his country's cause. A hundred years later, Isabel Parkman, a descendant of the couple retraced their steps and uncovers Anna and Sharif's secret. Shortlisted for the 1999 Booker Prize. 529pp, UK. BLOOMSBURY 0747545634

Again available, in a new edition, 183pp, EGYPT. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO, 9774245601

Collection of short stories bringing to life the personal tragedy of individuals caught up in massive social transformation of traditional Nubian life and culture. If the earlier dams that were built across the Nile during the first half of the twentieth century caused increasing numbers of the men folk to migrate north to Cairo and Alexandria to work as servants, waiters, and doormen, the completion of the High Dam in 1964 sounded the death knell. While the temples of Abu Simbel were meticulously relocated at great expense, the drowning of the ancient heartland of the Nubian people along the banks of the Nile went largely unnoticed. Glossary, 124pp, EGYPT. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO.

The author's second novel, set in the Nile side neighbourhood of Warraq. The story, beginning with the disappearance of Hanem, a grandmother who is over 100 years old, chronicles the daily rhythms of life of rural immigrants to Cairo and their complex webs of familial ties. Translated by Mona El Ghobashy. Index, 112pp, EGYPT. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO, 9774248287

Part 2 of the Cairo Trilogy. A saga of three generations of the life of the Al Jawad family in the old quarter of Cairo, from the around 1900 to 1952. 512pp, UK. BLACK SWAN.

The first book of the Cairo Trilogy in which the story of twentieth century Egypt is told through the eyes of the Al Jawad family. The Palace Walk opens during the First World War. Ahmad, a prosperous shopkeeper, is a tyrant at home, who terrorises his devoted wife Amina and keeps her in strict seclusion behind the house's latticed windows. This all changes when Amina is persuaded to venture outside the home by her son. 498pp, UK. BLACK SWAN. 0552995800 PB

1994 1991 1990 1956

A love story reflecting the relationship between people of opposing loyalties in Egypt. BNS, 340pp, EGYPT. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO, 9774246764

Against the background of the high politics of Sixth Dynasty Egypt, a powerful love grows between Rhadopis, a courtesan of low birth and the youthful, headstrong Pharaoh Merenra, worshiped by his people as a divine presence on earth. Translated from Arabic by Anthony Calderbank. Map, vii, 187pp, EGYPT. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO, 9774248082

Fouada meets her lover every Tuesday in a restaurant, but this week he isn't there. So starts a search which transforms other aspects of her life, leading her close to despair. 114pp, UK. ZED BOOKS, 1856490092

Set during the 1930s, in the small town of Tarrana in the Nile Delta region of Egypt, this novel revolves around nine episodes in the life of a sensitive young Christian boy. Its montage of philosophical, mythical and psychological perspectives highlights various struggles - between man and woman, Copt and Muslim, dream and reality. Translated from the Arabic by Paul Starkey. 144pp, UK. SAQI BOOKS.

Part 3 of The Cairo Trilogy. A saga of three generations of the life of the Al Jawad family in the old quarter of Cairo, from the around 1900 to 1952. 186pp, UK. BLACK SWAN.

Written in 1939, as British and Turkish armies held sway in Egypt, this novel tells the story of a pharaonic war in which the people of Egypt rise up against barbarians dominating the land. BNS, 208pp, EGYPT. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO, 9774248074

New edition. Bahiah Shaheen, an 18-year-old medical student and daughter of a prominent Egyptian public official, finds the male students in her class coarse and alien. Her father, too, seems to belong to a race apart. Frustrated by her hard-working, well-behaved, middle-class public persona, her meeting with a stranger at a gallery one day proves to be the beginning of her road to self-discovery and the realization that fulfilment in life is possible. 124pp, UK. SAQI BOOKS.

Five stories by the Nobel Prize winning writer, taking inspiration from the ancient tales of Egypt. BNS, 96pp, EGYPT. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO, 9774247582

A young man is drafted into the army on the eve of the 1973 October war. His father, a village elder, persuades a poor night watchman to send his own son as a stand in. But the impersonation plan goes horribly wrong, with tragi comic results. This novel parodying corruption and bureaucracy was banned in Egypt when it was first published in 1975. 192pp, UK. ARRIS BOOKS, 184437033X

New edition. Nawal El-Saadawi is the founder of the Arab Organisation for Human Rights and the Arab Women's Solidarity Association. Imprisoned by Sadat during the 1980s, her long work as a political and economic reformer in Egypt has often overshadowed her work as a writer of fiction. In this book El Saadawi recounts the life of a woman called Firdaus who was imprisoned and later executed for the murder of a pimp in a Cairo street. The power of the novel comes from its simplicity of form and her direct, almost clipped style stemming from her long work in fighting religious and colonial oppression of women. 128pp, UK. ZED BOOKS.

In the Yacoubian building live a cast of characters embodying the facets of modern Egypt, from the pious son of the doorkeeper to the raucous, impoverished squatters on the roof. BNS, 272pp, EGYPT. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO.

The story of the life of Zaat, an Egyptian woman, during the regimes of three presidents, Abdel Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak. Interspersed with extracts from newspapers of the day reflecting events and incidents contemporary with her life, the author provides keen insights into how Egypt has become the way it is today with cutting irony and his typical sense of humour. Translated from the Arabic by Anthony Calderbank. Gloss, vii, 349pp, EGYPT. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO, 9774248449

It's 1516 and the Mamluk reign is coming to an end with the advance of the invading Ottomans. The numerous narrators, among them a Venetian traveller and several native Muslims, tell the story of the rise to power of the ruthless, enigmatic, and puritanical governor of Cairo. BNS, 254pp, EGYPT. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO.