• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

The American The American University University in Cairo in Cairo Press Press The American University in Cairo Press is the largest English-language publisher in the Middle East. Founded in 1960, the Press plays a vital role in the cultural and academic dialog between the Arab world and the West. From Arabic fiction in translation through Egyptology to scholarly and general works on all aspects of modern Egypt and its neighbors, including the recent Arab uprisings, the publications of the AUC Press remain a canon of fresh and relevant publishing from the region. The American University in Cairo Press Cairo • New York Visit us at www.aucpress.com New Books Fall 2013 Letter from the Director Many books have been written about Gamal Abdel Nasser, a giant of twen - tieth-century world politics, but none as intimate as Nasser: My Husband (page 2), in which his wife Tahia tells the story—and shares the pictures—of their marriage, their home, their children, and the man who challenged the west and changed the face of Egypt. Now since 2011 Egypt and the Middle East have been transformed again, and in the fully updated new edition of his bestselling book Life as Politics (page 40), Asef Bayat looks at how popular protest in the region, contrary to expectation, can be a real agent for change. Our new translations of Arabic fiction this season include the winner of last year’s Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, House of the Wolf by Ezzat El Kamhawi (page 28); an epic novel of exile from Palestine by renowned Egyptian writer Radwa Ashour, The Woman from Tantoura (page 24); and Rain over Baghdad (page 23), a novel of love and disappearance in the dark days of Saddam’s Iraq by Egyptian writer Hala El Badry. In our expanding program of books for the Arabic classroom, Book Five of Samia Louis’s popular MSA series Lughatuna al-Fusha (page 38) will appear this fall, along with a new resource for MSA learners, Building Ara - bic Vocabulary through Reading (page 39), by veteran instructors Nariman Naili Al-Warraki and Nadia Harb. The Lost Manuscript of Frédéric Cailliaud (page 18), translated and edited by Andrew Bednarski, finally brings to light the careful research and beau - tiful color plates of an early nineteenth-century visitor to the ancient tombs of Upper Egypt, while modern scholars continue to study, analyze, and con - serve some of these same tombs in The Tomb Chapel of Menna , edited by Melinda Hartwig, and Tombs of the South Asasif Necropolis , edited by Elena Pischikova (pages 16 & 17). Marjorie Ransom is one of the foremost collectors of the traditional silver jewelry of Yemen, and she shares her in-depth knowledge of the craft, and many stunning photographs of necklaces, bracelets, and rings from all regions of the country in Silver Treasures from the Land of Sheba (page 10), both a beautiful gift book and a valuable reference for collectors. For those who prefer to collect memories, A Cairo Anthology (page 6), edited by Deborah Manley, brings together descriptions and thoughts on the city by early travelers from Sir Richard Burton to William Makepeace Thack - eray, from Florence Nightingale to Mark Twain, in a small, precious book packed with good writing. And if you enjoy good food as much as you enjoy good books, treat your - self to the mouth-wateringly illustrated and deliciously designed Authentic Egyptian Cooking from the Table of Abou El Sid (page 14), by Nehal Leheta. Dr. Nigel Fletcher-Jones [email protected] Illustrated Biography Nasser Tahia Gamal Abdel Nasser My Husband Foreword by Hoda Gamal Abdel Nasser A new and intimate portrait of an iconic world figure by the one who knew him best—his wife Gamal Abdel Nasser, architect of Egypt’s 1952 Revolution, president of the country from 1956 to 1970, hero to millions across the Arab world since the Suez Crisis, was also a family man, a devoted husband and father who kept his private life largely private. In 1973, three years after his early passing at the age of 52, his wife Tahia wrote a memoir of her beloved husband for her family. The family then waited almost forty years, through the presidencies of Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, both unsympathetic to the memory of Nasser, before publishing Tahia’s book in Arabic for the first time in 2011. Now this unique insight into the life of one of the giants of the twentieth century is finally available in English. Accompanied by more than one hundred photographs from the family archive, many never before published, this historic book tells the story of Gamal and Tahia’s life together from their marriage in 1944, through the Rev - olution and Gamal’s career on the world stage, revealing an unknown and inti - mate picture of the man behind the president. Also available: TAHIA GAMAL ABDEL NASSER , born Tahia Kazem in 1923, married Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1944 and lived with him until his death in 1970, raising five children. She died in 1990. HODA GAMAL ABDEL NASSER , daughter of Tahia and Gamal Abdel Nasser, is professor of politi - cal science at Cairo University. Original Arabic title: Dhikrayat ma‘ahu 214pp. Hbd. 110 illus., including 21 color. September. 978-977-416-611-2. LE150. World. 2 At the end of October, Gamal was scheduled to give a speech in Alexandria at al-Manshiya Square. He left the house in the early evening. It was his habit to put ‘‘ a small Qur’an contained in a white metal box in his pocket. He searched everywhere for it and so did I— in a great hurry since he was running late—but we could not find it. And so I gave Gamal another one with a cardboard cover. When he was at the door, I suddenly found his original Qur’an and raced to catch up with him and give it to him. He took it and placed it in his pocket, going out with two. The assassination attempt—eight bullets fired at him— happened while he was giving his speech at al-Man - shiya, and he survived. Ever after that, Gamal continued to go out of the house with two Holy Books, until the day he died.” At 6:30am on the morning of July 23, 1952 there was a knock on the door. Tharwat Okasha shook my hand and congratulated me: ‘The military coup has ‘‘ succeeded.’ I asked him about Gamal. ‘He is close by, not more than five minutes away at the General Command.’ At 9:30am an officer called: he had come from the General Command at Kubri al-Qubba, sent by Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser to tell me that he was fine and would not be home for lunch.” 3 Social History The Cotton Plantation Remembered Mona Abaza An Egyptian Family Story With photographs by the author The story of one family’s relation to the land and cotton in a time of social change Cotton made the fortune of the Fuuda family, Egyptian landed gentry with peasant origins, during the second part of the nineteenth century. This story, narrated and photographed by a family member who has researched and documented various aspects of her own history, goes well beyond the family photo album to become an attempt to convey how cotton, as the main catalyst and creator of wealth, produced by the beginning of the twentieth century two entirely separate worlds: one privileged and free, the other surviving at a level of bare subsis - tence, and indentured. The construction of lavish mansions in the Nile Delta countryside and the landowners’ adoption of European lifestyles are juxtaposed visually with the former laborers’ camp of the permanent workers, which became a village (‘ izba ), and then an urbanized settlement. The story is retold from the perspective of both the landowners and the for - mer workers who were tied to the ‘izba . The book includes family photo albums, photographs of political campaigns and of banquets in the countryside, documents and accounting books, modern portraits of the peasants, and pictures of daily life in the village today. This is a story that fuses the personal and emotional with the scholar’s detached ethnographic reporting—a truly fascinating, informative, and colorful view of life on both sides of a uniquely Egyptian socio-eco - nomic institution, and a vanished world: the cotton estate. MONA ABAZA is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the American University in Cairo. She is the author of The Changing Consumer Cul - tures of Modern Egypt (AUC Press, 2006) and Twentieth-Century Egyptian Art: The Private Col - lection of Sherwet Shafei (AUC Press, 2011). 224pp. Hbd. 200 illus. October. 978-977-416-571-9. LE200. World. 4 Contents 1. Therapeutic Photography 2. In the Beginning There Was Cotton Also by Mona Abaza: 3. A’yans, ‘Umdas: Getting Down to Wealth 4. The Organization of Labor 5. Violence and Banditry 6. The Vanished ‘Izba: An ‘Ashwa’iya Is Born Postscript: After January 25, 2011 5 Travel Writing A Cairo Anthology Edited by Deborah Manley Two Hundred Years of Travel Writing Illustrations by Edward William Lane A wonderful gift book that evokes the world’s great love of travel to Cairo and the pyramids Cairo has long been recognized as one of the great cities of the world, and many travelers have recorded their descriptions of it over the centuries—from the early eye-witness account of Herodotus to the reflections of Sir Richard Burton, Florence Nightingale, and Mark Twain. A Cairo Anthology gathers together the impressions of many of these writ - ers: with them we experience the excitement of exploring the great city, through its crowded streets and colorful bazaars, we enter the hotels, hire donkeys, ascend to the historic Citadel, and look out across the Nile toward the Sphinx and the Pyramids, and we visit those vast monuments that are in reality always larger and more extraordinary than one can believe, and climb to their summits to gaze back at Cairo, the Mother of the World.

Load more

  50

Copy Link