The Yacoubian Building

Last year, when I visited Cairo, I remember thinking how similar it was to my home-city of Bombay. It is a city of contradictions: where the very rich and the very poor live down the same street; where the once-elegant colonial structures blend into the general landscape of indifference; where people come to terms with the lack of fairness in the world & yet dream of good lives for themselves. My impressions of Cairo were confirmed when last week I read Alaa Al Aswany’s controversial ‘The Yacoubian Building’.

I loved the book. Not only is Al Aswany great at story-telling, he is also fearless. He gets his characters to open the closet doors wide, so that the skeletons come tumbling down: political corruption, homosexuality, militant nationalism, sexual repression, exploitation & other such taboo issues. The stories & characters are a slice out of modern Cairo & yet, they could have been in any big third world city. It provides a great insight into why the youth of these cities either leave the cities for the glossier lives in western cities or get misguided into believing that the only solution to their circumstances lies in extremist nationalism. Cynical, but thought provoking & overall, an excellent read. Highly recommended.