The Yacoubian Building

XXXIII, 21 (Arberry 429)

How evil a homecoming!

II, 126 (Arberry 16)

How often a little company has overcome a numerous company, by God’s leave!

II, 249 (Arberry 36)

Sweet patience.

LXX, 5 (Arberry 606)

Your women are a tillage for you…

II, 223 (Arberry 31)

Surely God is with the patient.

VIII, 46 (Arberry 174)

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. So let them fight in the way of God…

IV, 74–75 (Arberry 83)

Acknowledgments

This novel would not have seen the light without the help of many friends, first among whom is my friend and teacher Alaa el Deeb, to whom I owe the credit for anything I have achieved in the field of literature. Next are Gamal al-Ghitani, who courageously undertook the publication of the novel in Akhbar al- adab, and Dr. Galal Amin, who adopted it enthusiastically and recommended it to the publishers. Likewise, I cannot forget the kindness of Bilal Fadl, Khalid al Sirgani, Ragab Hassan, Makkawi Sa’id, Mahmoud el Wardani, and Muhammad Ibraheem Mabruk, to all of whom I extend my thanks and gratitude.

About the Author

ALAA AL ASWANY is the bestselling author of three previous books published in Arabic. He is a journalist who writes a monthly opposition newspaper column, and he makes his living as a dentist in Cairo, Egypt, where his first office was in the Yacoubian Building. The Yacoubian Building, which caused an immediate scandal due to its sexual frankness when first published in Egypt, has been translated into nine languages and was made into a film. It had the largest budget in Egyptian cinema and has been screened at various international film festivals.

About the Translator

HUMPHREY DAVIES earned his doctorate in Near Eastern studies from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the translator of Thebes at War by Naguib Mahfouz.

Praise for The Yacoubian Building

“Captivating and controversial… An amazing glimpse of modern Egyptian society and culture.”

New York Review of Books

“With its interlocking vignettes and intertwining characters, Alaa Al Aswany’s hip and racy novel creates a complex narrative of contemporary Egyptian life.” — Kaelen Wilson-Goldie,

The Daily Star (Beirut)

“Richly peppered with complex characters… A provocative survey of the social and political pressures of the present that has many Egyptians looking too nostalgically to their more tolerant and hopeful past.”

Donna Bryson, Associated Press

“The publication of The Yacoubian Building has enriched the art of the Egyptian novel.”

Gamal al-Ghitani, author of Zayni Barakat

“Delves into a mix of power, corruption, sex, exploitation, poverty, and extremism… [The Yacoubian Building] lucidly captures the varied aspects of Egyptian life: straight, gay, rich, poor, powerful, and powerless.”

Egypt Today

“The novel’s elegant prose touches sensitive nerves in its look at the country’s corruption and religious fanaticism… No other Egyptian, or Arab writer for that matter, has so boldly broken through the literary stagnation of the last fifty years by addressing these themes. Except perhaps Naguib Mahfouz, the Nobel laureate who penned The Cairo Trilogy in the 1950s.”

Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Foreign Policy magazine