The Automobile Club of Egypt - Tapa dura

Myriad colourful details, intertwining narratives, and dramatic cliffhangers form an earthy, entertaining contrast to the novel's sober preoccupations - namely, the human spirit's capacity to both transcend and be crushed by oppressive systems * * Publisher's Weekly, Pick of the Week * * Al Aswany is a humane, perceptive, evocative storyteller . . . A master observer of the human condition, unblinking but sympathetic, and unputdownable * * Literary Review * * A wonderful storyteller * * Spectator * * Among the best writers in the Middle East today . . . Al Aswany has his own magic * * Guardian * * Praise for The Yacoubian Building: The stories in this novel are beautifully, simply told - the characters are alive from page one * * Sunday Times * * Rich and engaging * * Daily Mail * * An intriguing and highly charged novel . . . Alaa Al Aswany's eponymous structure is a microcosm of modern Egyptian society . . . A superbly crafted feat of storytelling -- TASH AW * * Daily Telegraph * * Bewitching . . . a comic yet sympathetic novel about the vagaries of the human heart * * New York Times Book Review * * A superbly crafted feat of storytelling * * Sunday Telegraph * * A sharp, humorous novel -- CAROLINE MOORHEAD * * Spectator * * There are many stories here. The book is elaborate to bursting point, but always controlled, always whole. It is as juicy and satisfying as a shiny apple, its taste both strange and familiar, compassionate and bitter * * The Times * * Fabulous, acutely observed story of human foibles, full of vivid scenes and extraordinary characters * * Mail on Sunday * * With its parade of big-city characters, both ludicrous and tender, its warm heart and political indignation, it belongs to a literary tradition that goes back to the 1840s, to Eugene Sue and Charles Dickens . . . The plotting is neat, the episodes are funny and sad, and there are deaths and weddings aplenty * * Guardian * * Addictively readable * * Independent * * Absorbing * * Observer * * Bewitching * * Scotsman * * Praise for Chicago: Brilliant . . . Al Aswany is like an Egyptian Anne Tyler * * Sunday Times * * A powerful, political page-turner * * Daily Mail * * A masterpiece, the warmest and finest and most involving Egyptian novel in the last thirty years * * Open Letters Monthly * *

Inside the walls of the Automobile Club of Egypt two very different worlds collide - Cairo's European elite and the Egyptian staff who wait on them. The servants, a squabbling, humorous and deeply human group, live in a perpetual state of fear under the tyrannical rule of Alku. When Abd el-Aziz Gaafar becomes the target of Alku's cruelty and his pride gets the better of him, a devastating act sends ripples through his family. Soon, the Gaafars are drawn into the turbulent politics of the club - both public and private - and servants and masters are subsumed by Egypt's social upheaval. Egyptians both inside and outside the Automobile Club will all face a stark choice: to live safely without dignity, or to fight for their rights and risk everything.