The Field
Price range: £9.99 through £14.99
Available 11 March 2027
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- Pages
- 308
About the Book
I am fairly sure that when our ancestors first dismounted, they only meant to stretch their legs, not stay forever.
From the moment Zaz realises that she’s a girl – not ‘a man who does as he pleases’ – she dreams of freedom. Instead, she becomes one of the first Bedouin to settle in Egypt in the 1930s, part of the last generation to leave behind a nomadic life that had followed the seasons for centuries.
Determined to build a life of her own, Zaz pours herself into her small field. Early each morning, before the sun rises, she leaps over the wall to tend to her trees and clear the irrigation channel that divides wheat from raw earth. But growing what she needs is one thing. It is another thing altogether to guard it from the thieving neighbours.
Zaz was my mother. This is her story, and the story of how our people learned to put down roots without losing themselves – or their cows and chickens – with the help of one determined little donkey.
About the Author
Hamdi Abu Gollayel
Hamdi Abu Golayyel (1967–2023) was an Egyptian storyteller and writer from a settled Bedouin family. His work fuses myth and folklore to tell the tales of marginalised and working-class communities in Egypt. Golayyel’s novels include Thieves in Retirement and The Men Who Swallowed the Sun. He received numerous literary awards, including the Egyptian Ministry of Culture’s Best Short Story Collection, the Arabic Creative Writing Award UAE and the Naguib Mahfouz Prize for Fiction.
Robin Moger Translator
Robin Moger is a British translator of Arabic literature based in Barcelona. His translations have appeared in The White Review, Asymptote, Words Without Borders and others. He has translated several novels, including Haytham El Wardany’s The Book of Sleep and Slipping by Mohamed Kheir. He won the Banipal Prize for his translation of The Book of Safety by Yasser Abdel Hafez in 2017.
Reviews
‘A gifted storyteller.’ World Literature Today
‘Abu Golayyel represents a unique experience in Arab literature, an experience inspired by the spirit of the desert.’ The Arab Weekly
