num_pages: 266
description: The Yacoubian Building holds all that Egypt was and has become over the 75 years since its namesake was built on one of downtown Cairo's main boulevards. From the pious son of the building's doorkeeper and the raucous, impoverished squatters on its roof, via the tattered aristocrat and the gay intellectual in its apartments, to the ruthless businessman whose stores occupy its ground floor, each sharply etched character embodies a facet of modern Egypt -- where political corruption, ill-gotten wealth, and religious hypocrisy are natural allies, where the arrogance and defensiveness of the powerful find expression in the exploitation of the weak, where youthful idealism can turn quickly to extremism, and where an older, less violent vision of society may yet prevail. Alaa Al Aswany's novel caused an unprecedented stir when it was first published in 2002 and has remained the world's best selling novel in the Arabic language since.
language: English
title: The Yacoubian Building
titlecomplete: The Yacoubian Building
genres: Fiction, Egypt, Egyptian Literature, Book Club, Literature, Novels, Contemporary, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Africa
ratings_count: 20935
places: Egypt, Cairo
awards: awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
category: Longlist, awardedAt: 1325404800000
name: Premio Euskadi de Literatura
category: Traduccion, awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: Premio Grinzane Cavour
category: Narrativa Straniera
publisher: The American University in Cairo Press