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From the best-selling author of The Map of Love, here is a bracing firsthand account of the Egyptian revolution—told with the narrative instincts of a novelist, the gritty insights of an activist, and the long perspective of a native Cairene.
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Since January 25, 2011, when thousands of Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square to demand the fall of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, Ahdaf Soueif—author, journalist, and lifelong progressive—has been among the revolutionaries who have shaken Egypt to its core. In this deeply personal work, Soueif summons her storytelling talents to trace the trajectory of her nation’s ongoing transformation. She writes of the passion, confrontation, and sacrifice that she witnessed in the historic first eighteen days of uprising—the bravery of the youth who led the revolts and the jubilation in the streets at Mubarak’s departure. Later, the cityscape was ablaze with political graffiti and street screenings, and with the journalistic and organizational efforts of activists—including Soueif and her family.
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In the weeks and months after those crucial eighteen days, we watch as Egyptians fight to preserve and advance their revolution—even as the interim military government, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, throws up obstacles at each step. She shows us the council delaying abdication of power, undermining efforts toward democracy, claiming ownership of the revolution while ignoring its martyrs. We see elections held and an Islamist voted into power. At each scene, Soueif gives us her view from the ground—brave, intelligent, startlingly immediate. Against this stormy backdrop, she interweaves memories of her own Cairo—the balcony of her aunt’s flat, where, as a child, she would watch the open-air cinema; her first job, as an actor on a children’s sitcom; her mother’s family land outside the city, filled with fruit trees and palm groves, in sight of the pyramids. In so doing, she affirms the beauty and resilience of this ancient and remarkable city. The book ends with a postscript that considers Egypt’s more recent turns: the shifts in government, the ongoing confrontations between citizen and state, and a nation’s difficult but deeply inspiring path toward its great, human aims—bread, freedom, and social justice. In these pages, Soueif creates an illuminating snapshot of an event watched by the world—the outcome of which continues to be felt across the globe.
- Sales Rank: #982875 in eBooks
- Published on: 2014-01-07
- Released on: 2014-01-07
- Format: Kindle eBook
From Publishers Weekly
What novelist and translator Soueif (The Map of Love; Mezzaterra) saw during the Egyptian revolution of 2011 was no less than the upheaval of an entire order of Egyptian society. Hailing from a generation that tried and failed to bring down the Mubarak dictatorship years before, Soueif rushed back to her native city from a literary festival in India on January 25, 2011, after she heard news of unrest erupting in Tahrir Square. She affectionately refers to the now world-famous square as the Midan (from its Arabic name: Midan el-Tahrir) throughout her diary of the decisive first 18 days, which is followed by accounts tracking later events during the year, such as the elections. Her grown children and nephews and nieces raced home, some from abroad, joining activist siblings, friends, aunts, and other relatives. They participated in spontaneous street demonstrations and provided aid to protestors, as well as setting up film and Internet stations. Soueif writes of her tremendous pride in the younger generation, who faced down government thugs, snipers perched on buildings, tanks, and security police. Many received beatings, or were imprisoned (her own nephew, Alaa, was jailed) or, in the case of 843 protesters, killed. The author captures beautifully her anguish at Cairo's degradation during the years of dictatorship and Mubarak's calculated sowing of division among the people. Yet with the recent violent eruptions in the country, Soueif's work as an eloquent witness is a work in progress. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency. (Jan.)
From Booklist
Soueif, author of the best-selling The Map of Love, provides a timely updated edition of her 2012 memoir, Cairo, My City, Our Revolution. Though the bulk of her eyewitness recollections understandably focus on the 18-day revolution that rocked Cairo in 2011, she also interweaves affectionate and peaceful memories of Cairo, Egypt, and her family into the fiery narrative. As an active participant and a keenly observant chronicler of the impassioned rebellion, her firsthand account offers insight into the heady days of the original revolution and its tumultuous aftermath. As Egyptian citizens continue to live the revolution, she provides a uniquely personal perspective on both the events of 2011 and the ensuing years. Contemporaneous food for thought in light of the current turmoil in the Middle East. --Margaret Flanagan
From Bookforum
Most of Ahdaf Soueif's new book, Cairo, participates wholeheartedly in this celebratory, utopian account of the eighteen-day overthrow of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak and its aftermath. But as Soueif traces the still-unresolved and unstable arc of Egypt's unfolding saga, she comes away [...] with a much more subdued evaluation of how this festival may end. [...] While the book's indiviudal parts can make for an incomplete and frustrating vantage on the events that have lately shaken Egypt's political order and civil society to their core, Cairo is nonetheless greater than the sum of its diary entries. [...] The lasting value of Cairo stems from the author's ability to precisely and accessibly articulate the irreversible cultural changes that have suddenly transformed the public's relationship to authority in Egypt and some other Arab states. —Hussein Ibish
Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
An up-close look at an event US media did not do a good job covering
By Nathan Webster
It's important to know that author Ahdaf Soueif is not attempting to present an "objective" narrative - she is 100 percent invested in the success of the popular uprising that led to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's resignation. That's not a negative in anyway, simply her strong point of view.
While I had some knowledge of the events described here, most of my information came from the generally weak coverage of the US media, which focused on a few big events without much nuance. Since Mubarak was a US "ally" for many years, and our media presented his downfall as a positive event, I was left to wonder why we considered him a good guy in the first place.
Soueif's narrative describes an uprising from the ground floor, and it's a sweeping, often confusing series of events. The government-backed militias willfully shoot and beat people, and Soueif makes pains to draw a distinction between the "good" military (at first) and the "bad" militias. By standing aside, the military enabled the uprising to gain a foothold and drive Mubarak out.
In a 'meet-the-new-boss' style, the post-Mubarak transitional military government is hardly any less brutal, using arrests and beatings of protesters to maintain control. So the protesters aren't fighting just Mubarak, but the entire system, and the system isn't going anywhere.
I had little idea how much Mubarak was despised - although Soueif is focused on her point of view. Just like the Shah of Iran before him, we here in the US often think that because foreign leaders are "on our side" that means the people are too, and that's clearly not the case here. Like most despots, it seemed Mubarak and his cronies did their best to steal and loot the country, and only occasionally throw a few pittances down to the citizens.
I grew a little weary of Soueif's style of often using "we" as a narration - she's doing it to show the scope of the revolution, and how she was part of this vast collective, but it just seemed precious to me (even though I use it too, so maybe I'm internalizing).
This isn't a history of "Cairo," but it is the promised "memoir of a city transformed." Like other reviews have pointed out, this is not definitive. It ends on a necessarily ambiguous note, since the Muslim Brotherhood won the election (that many voters didn't participate in) and we know that the military coup has already taken them out of power.
This narrative shows the hopeful idealism and effort of 'regular' Egyptians to throw out one venal group of politicians, but also shows how difficult it is to actually replace a power structure. We see it in the US all the time - we vote based on a couple hot-button issues, but don't pay any attention to the 99 percent of decisions politicians actually make that benefit their cronies first, and us last. But since we're fat and lazy, it's very unlikely that we'll follow the Egyptians lead in actually doing anything about it. If Mubarak was smart, he would have made an effort to make sure everybody had cable TV and lots of junk shows. But I digress.
Soueif's narrative will fill in a lot of blanks left by media coverage of these events and make a reader appreciate the "little people" behind the scenes. It was a brutal, chaotic time....it's still unclear what Egypt will be left with.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
"I am not unique, but Cairo is"
By S. McGee
In many ways, this is less of a chronicle of a revolution won and then lost, but of a lifelong, unquenchable love of one particularly eloquent writer for the city of her birth. That it happens to also be the single best chronicle of the events of early 2011 that I have yet read (not being able to read Arabic) is simply the icing on the cake.
Divided into four parts, novelist and essayist Ahdaf Soueif moves back and forth between the mesmerizing and compelling events of January/February 2011 that culminated in the ousting of longtime Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and her later assessment of the political situation six months to 18 months down the road. The result -- no spoilers needed, as anyone can read the headlines -- is one of disillusionment. What makes this a worthwhile and often fascinating chronicle, however, is Soueif's personal connection to events: her family members are intimately engaged in the struggle to create some kind of secular democracy in the wake of Mubarak's kleptocracy. The jury is out on whether that attempt will prove futile -- clearly, Soueif has her own view of the situation.
For me, the standout segments are the first and third, devoted to the events themselves, the 18 days that led to "victory". It's a great reminder of how protests can evolve almost effortlessly into revolts and ultimately revolutions, even when the protagonists themselves have more limited objectives. But Mubarak's departure was just the first step, and Soueif's second and fourth segments, devoted to the months and years that followed, are a more sobering indictment of the divisiveness that has rocked Egypt since then. Winning a revolution, it seems, is not the same as creating a new society.
This wasn't quite a five-star book for me (although it came close) for two reasons. Firstly, while Soueif does a marvelous and eloquent job of the reportage, and of recounting her family's lifelong ties to Cairo throughout its history, at times her analytical approach seemed too idealistic and even naive. After decades of totalitarian rule, without a tradition of the kind of democracy she believed in, with the sole organized opposition being the Muslim Brotherhood, why does she sound so startled by the outcomes and alternatives? What makes the reportage so vivid and dramatic -- her familiarity with the subject and the engagement of friends and family in one wing of the struggle -- also becomes a handicap, to at least some extent. It's as if she can't understand why her fellow-Egyptians don't get it.
This could have been better had Soueif found a way to step back and be even slightly more dispassionate and analytical. What does it mean to succeed in an immediate objective -- and then to build on it, rather than to cede control to others? What does it mean to "win" a revolution? She's a thoughtful and insightful observer who didn't go quite far enough to make this the brilliant book that it had the potential to be. But that doesn't mean it isn't well worth reading. 4.5 stars.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Gripping first-hand account of the Egyptian Revolution
By Q. Publius
Twenty years ago the author was asked to write a book about her beloved birthplace, Cairo. She resisted, but when thousands of Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square in January 2011, Ahdaf Soueif was among them, and it was there she felt she had to write her story of the Revolution, the passion, violence and traumatic political events that took place in the city of her birthplace. This book is a memoir of sorts, but also a story of current political events, a story that is still unfinished today. She published a book in the United Kingdom by the name of Cairo: My City, Our Revolution, and it detailed events up to October 2011. But with events still unfolding after the Revolution, this American version of Soueif's book includes the period of about a year after 2011. Much of the book deals with eighteen days of events from January to February 2011 before the overturning of the Mubarak regime. Throughout the volume, Soueif writes a little of her childhood, the places and events in her life that shaped her as a person and led her to later embrace the Revolution. The book is detailed, many of the events described are not what one would read about in the Western press. I did not realize the extent of the violence and torture that was perpetrated against the Egyptian people by the police and the military and what was really behind the politics of the Muslim Brotherhood. Soueif was involved in the thick of it all. Is she biased toward the Revolution? Absolutely. I would say she definitely is, so one must keep that in mind when reading this book. You are reading only one side of the story. The end of the book deals with the elections, the dissolution of Parliament and the first few months of Muhammad Morsi's presidency. But Soueif states that the Revolution is ongoing, the story is not finished. Egyptians have a long way to go for everyone to have equal rights, individual freedom and to obtain a higher standard of living. She writes that protests by oppressed peoples are going on now around the world, not just in the Arab countries and they will continue to flourish. Even in Egypt, the political wind is still very uncertain.
Some good maps of Cairo are included in the book so that reader will have an idea of the locations of the places that Soueif writes about. Also, Soueif provides what she calls "A brief and necessary history"--a few pages of the history of Egyptian government from 1517 to 2011 which provides the reader with a good background.
I would recommend this book for anyone interested in modern Egyptian history and political science and politics in the Arab world in general and for those who want a deeper understanding of how a people can hold democratic elections and then shortly afterward, embrace a political Revolution.
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