Ahdaf Soueif

A compact edition of this highly acclaimed survey of the Fayum paintings, the enigmatic and compelling funeral portraits created by the inhabitants of Roman Egypt in the 1st century CE. These remarkable paintings take their name from a district of Roman Egypt, whose people in the first three centuries AD included Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Syrians, Libyans, Nubians and Jews. In the Egyptian tradition, they embalmed the bodies of their dead; but then placed a painted portrait over the mummy, preserving the memory of each individual to an uncanny degree. Over 1000 have so far been discovered – men, women and children of all ages. Illustrating almost 200 of the portraits, Euphrosyne Doxiadis’s book combines arresting beauty with up-to-date scholarship. Having selected the best and most interesting, she has grouped them according to the places where they were found. Many new photographs were commissioned and some are shown since cleaning. Doxiadis’s text sets the people and the paintings in their social, artistic and geographical context, describing the techniques used and showing how the Fayum portraits relate to Byzantine icon painting, in a tradition that extends from ancient Greece to the Renaissance and on to the present day.

When throngs of Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square to demand the fall of Hosni Mubarak's regime, Ahdaf Soueif--author, journalist, lifelong progressive--was among them. Now, in this deeply personal work, Soueif summons her storytelling talents to trace her city's--and nation's--ongoing transformation. She writes of the youth who led the revolts, and of the jubilation in the streets at Mubarak's departure. We then watch as Egyptians fight for democracy, as the interim military government throws up obstacles at every step, and as an Islamist is voted into power. Against this stormy backdrop, Soueif casts memories of her own Cairo--the open-air cinema; her family's land, in sight of the pyramids--and affirms the beauty of this ancient city. Soueif's postscript considers Egypt's more recent turns in its difficult but deeply inspiring path toward its great human aims.

_____________________An intimate telling of the wild days of the 2011 Egyptian RevolutionAhdaf Soueif was born and brought up in Cairo. When the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 erupted on January 25th, she, along with thousands of others, called Tahrir Square home for eighteen days. She reported for the world's media and did, like everyone else, whatever she could.Cairo tells the story of the Egyptian Revolution, of how on the 28th of January when The People took the Square and torched the headquarters of the hated ruling National Democratic Party, The (same) People formed a human chain to protect the Antiquities Museum and demanded an official handover to the military; it tells how, on Wednesday, February 2nd, as The People defended themselves against the invading thug militias and fought pitched battles at the entrance to the Square in the shadow of the Antiquities Museum, The (same) People at the centre of the square debated political structures and laughed at stand-up comics and distributed sandwiches and water.Through a map of stories drawn from private history and public record Soueif charts a story of the Revolution that is both intimately hers and publicly Egyptian._____________________'Captures the intoxicating romance of the weeks when anything seemed possible. Souief writes with verve and passion, offering the authentic voice of the liberal Egyptian who risked everything because she wanted her country to have freedom and democracy' TELEGRAPH'Should serve as a heartening reminder of what people are capable of achieving when united and courageous' ECONOMIST‘Ahdaf Soueif is extraordinary' EDWARD SAID, author of Orientialism‘A convincing and skilful writer' SUNDAY TIMES'Highly unusual and richly impressive' GUARDIAN

Ahdaf Soueif - romanförfattare, kommentator och aktivist - berättar i Kairo, min stad, vår revolution"´ om sin stad och sin resa genom den revolution som ritat om framtidens karta. Genom berättelser av såväl privat som allmän natur skissar Soueif en bild av revolutionen som både är djupt personlig och nationellt egyptisk. Ahdaf Soueif har skrivit bestsellern The Map of Love (som kvalificerade sig till slutomgången för Bookerpriset 1999 och översatts till över tjugo språk; på svenska Kärlekens väv, Alhambra 2002) liksom In the Eye of the Sun ("I solens öga", Alhambra 2004) och en novellsamling, I Think of You. Hon kommenterar också politik och kultur och har av London Review of Books beskrivits som "en politisk analytiker och kommentator av bästa slag", vars klarögda rapportering och analys samtidigt publiceras på olika håll världen runt. En samling av hennes essäer, Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground, utgavs 2004. Samma år översatte hon Mourad Barghoutis I Saw Ramallah (från arabiska till engelska). Hon medverkar regelbundet i The Guardian och har en veckospalt i egyptiska al-Shurouq. 2007 grundade hon Engaged Events, en brittiskbaserad stiftelse. Dess första projekt var den Palestinska litteraturfestivalen (PalFest), som hålls i Jerusalem, Betlehem, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin och Hebron.

On October 7th 2001, US-led forces invaded Afghanistan, marking the start of George Bush and Tony Blair's "War on Terror." Six years on, where have the policies of Bush and Blair left us? Bringing together some of the finest contemporary writers, this wide-ranging anthology, from reportage and "faction" to fiction, explores the impact of this "long war" throughout the world, from Palestine to Iraq, Abu Ghraib, the curtailment of civil liberties and manipulation of public opinion.Published in conjunction with Stop the War coalition and United for Peace and Justice, War With No End provides an urgent, necessary reflection on the causes and consequences of the ideological War on Terror.

A new collection of short fiction by the author of The Map of Love explores the often challenging worlds of men and women who are caught up in a web of social and cultural mores, prescribed ideas about love, lost opportunities, unfulfilled desire, and nostalgia, caught between the Arab world and the West. Original. 17,500 first printing.

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. She delivers her characters with infinite tenderness and compassion as they inhabit a world of lost opportunities, unfulfilled love and remembrance of times past.

From the bestselling author of the Booker Prize finalist The Map of Love-an incisive collection of essays on Arab identity, art, and politics that seeks to locate the mezzaterra, or common ground, in an increasingly globalized world.The twenty-five years' worth of criticism and commentary collected here have earned Ahdaf Soueif a place among our most prominent Arab intellectuals. Clear-eyed and passionate, and syndicated throughout the world, they are the direct result of Soueif's own circumstances of being "like hundreds of thousands of others: people with an Arab or a Muslim background doing daily double-takes when faced with their reflection in a western mirror." Whether an account of visiting Palestine and entering the Noble Sanctuary for the first time, an interpretation of women who choose to wear the veil, or her post--September 11 reflections, Soueif's intelligent, fearless, deeply informed essays embody the modern search for identity and community.

"Globalisation is happening. It is driven by economics, ideology and communications. But does this have to entail the annexation of chunks of the world by the Great Power of any given moment? Surely that is the path to constant conflict, to grief and misery. There is another way: to inhabit and broaden the common ground. This is the ground where everybody is welcome, the ground we need to defend and to expand. It is in Mezzaterra that every responsible person on this planet now needs to pitch their tent. This is the ground from which this book is calling." Ahdaf Soueif is one of the finest commentators of our time. Her clear-eyed reporting is syndicated throughout the world, and these essays, written between 1981 and the present, are collected here for the first time. They are the direct result of Soueif's own circumstances of being, as she puts it, "like hundreds of thousands of others: people with an Arab or a Muslim background doing daily double-takes when faced with their reflection in a western mirror". From visiting Palestine and entering the Noble Sanctuary for the first time, to interpretations of women who choose to wear the veil, and to post-September 11th commentary, these selected essays are always perceptive, fearless, intelligent and necessary.

"Redan med Aisha (1983) stod det klart att Ahdaf Soueif var en berättartalang att räkna med. Flera romaner sedan dess, bl.a. Kärlekens väv (2002), bekräftade omdömet. I solens öga, som kom ut för mer än 10 år sedan, är nu äntligen översatt. ... "I solens öga" handlar om kulturskillnader, könsrelationer och egyptisk politik de senaste 30 åren. Författaren hanterar skickligt ett digert persongalleri, olika tidsplan och skilda berättarperspektiv." Ulla Siljeholm, BTJ

Efter Ahdaf Soueifs internationellt uppskattade roman In the Eye of the Sun, (utkommer på Alhambra våren 2003) undrade många hur hon skulle klara av en värdig uppföljare. Kärlekens väv är hennes svar ? och utan tvivel är den ännu ett angloarabiskt mästerverk. Ahdaf Soueif är född i Kairo och är utbildad i Egypten och England. Hon har skrivit Aisha, Sandpiper och In the Eye of the Sun. Kärlekens väv är berättelsen om två berättelser som är intimt sammanflätade. Lady Anna Winterbourne reser till Egypten år 1900, då hon nyligen blivit änka. Där möter hon Sharif Pasha al-Baroudi, en egyptisk nationalist av börd. För Sharif representerar Anna i förstone det kolonialistiska England med dess falska välvilja och vulgära högfärd. För henne står Sharif för det äkta, hemliga Egypten ? ett Egypten som är fördolt för hennes likgiltiga landsmän. De blir förälskade i varann, dock med viss ängslan. De gifter sig, men kommer Anna att kunna bli en österländsk hustru? Och kommer omvärlden, den ogina verkligheten präglad av historia och politik, att ge dem en chans att försöka? Dessa frågor har också stark aktualitet för hjältinnan i bokens andra berättelse, den om Isabel Parkman, en frånskild amerikanska och en släkting till Anna och Sharif. 1997 träffar Isabel Omar al-Ghamrawi och blir kär. Han är en egyptier som bor i New York och som också har blodsband till Anna och Sharif. Isabel bestämmer sig för att göra en resa till Egypten. Med sig har hon en gammal familjekoffert, som hon sänder till Omars syster Amal, som fortfarande bor i Kairo. I denna koffert finner Amal anteckningar och dagböcker till vilka Anna hundra år tidigare har anförtrott sin kärlekshistoria med Sharif. Amal pusslar ihop historien för Isabel, och medan den gamla historien rullas upp, skönjer man också den nya berättelsen, Isabels berättelse, med ett brett spektrum av nya samband och djup. För såväl Egypten, som för korskulturella äktenskap, har mycket förändrats sedan 1900, men mycket är fortfarande sig likt. Dagens Egypten, inser Isabel, har fötts ur gårdagens Egypten. Hon nominerades för boken till finalen i engelska "Booker Prize" 1999.

Booker Prize Finalist Here is an extraordinary cross-cultural love story that unfurls across Egypt, England, and the United States over the course of a century. Isabel Parkman, a divorced American journalist, has fallen in love with a gifted and difficult Egyptian-American conductor. Shadowing her romance is the courtship of her great-grandparents Anna and Sharif nearly one hundred years before. In 1900 the recently widows Anna Winterbourne left England for Egypt, an outpost of the Empire roiling with political sentiment. She soon found herself enraptured by the real Egypt and in love with Sharif Pasha al-Baroudi, an Egyptian nationalist. When Isabel, in an attempt to discover the truth behind her heritage, reenacts Anna's excursion to Egypt, the story of her great-grandparents unravels before her, revealing startling parallels for her own life. Combining the romance and intricate narrative of a nineteenth-century novel with a very modern sense of culture and politics--both sexual and international--Ahdaf Soueif has created a thoroughly seductive and mesmerizing tale.

Set amidst the turmoil of contemporary Middle Eastern politics, this vivid and highly-acclaimed novel by an Egyptian journalist is an intimate look into the lives of Arab women today. Here, a woman who grows up among the Egyptian elite, marries a Westernized husband, and, while pursuing graduate study, becomes embroiled in a love affair with an uncouth Englishman.

In Egypt Lady Anna Winterbourne meets Sharif, an Egyptian Nationalist committed to his country's cause. They fall in love and marry, but can Anna turn herself into an Oriental wife? A century later, Isabel Parkman - descendent of the marriage - is in love with Omar-al-Ghamrawi - another descendent.

This is a love story, a story about growing up, a story about what its like to be a women (East and West), a story about the history of the post-imperial Middle East during the last 30 years or so, perplexed and bloody years, and a story about home.