It has few formal or intellectual pretensions and al Aswany's prose remains resolutely affectless - critics say 'flat' - throughout. " The Yacoubian Building is more old-fashioned melodrama than snappy sociopolitical critique.(.) Let's hope Humphrey Davies's fine translation helps win the wider audience both the novel and the film deserve." - Lorraine Adams, The New York Times Book Review "Aswany's shifting searchlight brings out the far-reaching effects of abysmal governance on the most intimate corners of everyday life - for everyone.(.) Insgesamt jedenfalls schreibt al-Aswani mit so viel Tempo, Witz und Herz, dass man diese Bestandesaufnahme aus dem heutigen Ägypten begierig wie kräftigen Mokka schlürft - und erst nachher realisiert, dass man auch den dunklen Bodensatz aus Zorn und Hoffnungslosigkeit absorbiert hat." - Angela Schader, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
(.) In diesem breit angelegten Bilderbogen fehlt es nicht an fein gestalteten Vignetten und ironischen Glanzlichtern.
"Immer wieder stellt al-Aswani dabei innere Bezüge her, welche durch die gekonnt organisierte Erzählstruktur des Romans noch akzentuiert werden.(.) (T)he most emotionally compelling Egyptian novel published in English since Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy." - Alev Adil, The Independent Al Aswany's interwoven narratives of the diverse inhabitants of a once grand, now dilapidated, apartment block in downtown Cairo marry the humanist realism of Balzac with the hyperbolic momentum of Egyptian soap opera. "Yet despite dealing with serious subjects, the experience of reading the novel is more akin to a guilty literary pleasure than a civic duty.Aswany's is an altogether more worldly Egypt, and one that is in a hurry to get somewhere or other." - James Buchan, The Guardian For all the Mahfouzian decor - prostitution, hashish, homosexuality - there is none of the oddity, even clownishness, of character or the intensity of savour and texture of Midaq Alley. The plotting is neat, the episodes are funny and sad, and there are deaths and weddings aplenty. "If the characters, good and bad, educated or not, have a quality in common, it is a sort of big-city sophistication."(N)o other Egyptian, or Arab writer for that matter, has so boldly broken through the literary stagnation of the last 50 years by addressing these themes, except perhaps Naguib Mahfouz" - Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Foreign Policy.The Yacoubian Building was made into a film in 2006, directed by Marwan Hamedī+ : appealing slice-of-Cairo-lives novel.General information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author
Trying to meet all your book preview and review needs.
0 kommentar(er)
