num_pages: 336
description: *A PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD FINALIST* A KIRKUS BEST BOOK OF THE YEARFrom a hugely talented award-winning young author a brilliant lively debut novel about an impulsive American attorney a methodical Egyptian translator and a disillusioned Iraqi-American resettlement officer trying to protect a refugee who finds herself trapped in Cairo during the turbulent aftermath of the January 25 revolution.Cairo 2011. President Mubarak has just been ousted from power. The oldest city in the world is reeling from political revolution its consequent hopes and fears its violence triumphs and defeats. But for the people actually living there daily life has not slowed down but become wilder more dangerous and occasionally freeing.Live from Cairo is the exuberant dazzling story of these Dalia a strong-willed Iraqi refugee who finds herself trapped in Egypt after her petition to resettle in America with her husband is denied. Charlie her foolhardy attorney whose frustration with the legal bureaucracy and complicated feelings for Dalia have led him to forge a not entirely legal plan to get her out. Aos Charlies fastidious translator and only friend who spends his days trying to help people through the system and his nights in Tahrir Square protesting against it. And Hana a young and disenchanted Iraqi-American resettlement officer; she is the worker assigned to Dalias case deciding whether to treat her plight as merely one more piece of paperwork or as a full-blooded human crisis. As these individuals come together a plot is formed to help Dalia. But soon laws are broken friendships and marriages are tested and lives are riskedall in an effort to protect one person from the dangerous sweep of an unjust world.A vibrant portrait of a city in all its teeming chaos and glory Live from Cairo is an exhilarating electrifying debut and a stunning testament to the unconquerable desire of people to rise above tragedy to seek love friendship humor and joy.
language: English
title: Live from Cairo
publisher: Scribner