Cairo Stories

About the Book

Egypt is the setting for this collection, but the stories are universal– whether it’s the girl whose mother no longer  seems to recognise her, a young man who uses the changing political climate to humiliate the family patriarch, or the woman consumed by guilt for abandoning her children. Echoing  V.S. Pritchett’s words, they ‘look for the silent moment in which our singularity breaks through, when emotions change, without warning, and reveal themselves.’

And while revealing themselves they also unveil the scents and sensations of Cairo, from the early 1930s to the present day.

 

About the Author

Anne-Marie Drosso was born in Cairo. She left Egypt in her twenties for Canada, where she studied, taught and worked in the legal field, and then lived in London. She is the author of In Their Father's Country (Telegram) and Cairo Stories (Telegram). She now lives in Pacific Grove, California.

Reviews

'While Drosso's prose remains earthbound, the tales are lively and dramatic, with a well-judged comic edge.'
Mslexia

'A wonderful collection ... Drosso paints brilliant portraits of intensely imagined (or remembered) characters who love, get angry, make bad decisions, fall out, reconcile, experience loss. That they are between-and-betwixt gives their stories a freshness, a new angle and point of view that makes the sense of loss evoked by Drosso, so much more real'
Laleh Khalili, The Middle East in London

'A Cairene at heart, it explains Drosso's ability to create believable Egyptian characters. They are not romanticized. They are not tainted with preseumptions. She is able to breathe life into them as if they existed and she was sketching them for a real life portrait.'
The Daily Star

'These elegant, unadorned narratives of Egyptians at home and at large, as variegated as the city from which they take their name, span classes, continents and decades with confidence and humour. We are in the company of a hugely promising and individual talent.'
Aamer Hussein

'This short story collection examining the inner lives of Egyptians at home and abroad is remarkable for its measured, delicate approach to its subjects... appealingly understated. An interesting collection.'
Pulp.net