Russell Harris

The loss of a parent is a personal and unique emotional event for any individual. However, such a loss is also a virtually universal situation that we will all experience at some point in our lives. This book sets out one such story surrounding the loss of the author's parents over the period 2006 to 2012, yet brings a certain comfort in the knowledge of people's commonality and universality. It is interspersed with retrospective reflections and views, providing thoughts and options for coping with the associated traumas. An epilogue is also included with more generic reflections and wider considerations.

As the Egyptian revolution unfolded throughout 2011 and the ensuing years, no one was better positioned to comment on it - and try to push it in productive directions - than best-selling novelist and political commentator Alba Al Aswany. For years a leading critic of the Mubarak regime, Al Aswany used his weekly newspaper column for Al-Masry Al-Youm to propound the revolution's ideals and to confront the increasingly troubled politics of its aftermath. This book presents, for the first time in English, all of Al Aswany's columns from the period, a comprehensive account of the turmoil of the post-revolutionary years, and a portrait of a country and a people in flux. Each column is presented along with a context - setting introduction, as well as notes and a glossary, all designed to give non-Egyptian readers the background they need to understand the events and figures that Al Aswany chronicles. The result is a definitive portrait of Egypt today - how it got here, and where it might be headed.