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Al-Ahram Weekly 10 - 16 February 2000 Issue No. 468 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 10 - 16 February 2000 Issue No. 468
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt: Nile, Desert, and People, Wolfgang and Rosel Jahn, Trans. by Manuela Kunkel and Ian Portman. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press 1999. pp191 + 300 colour illustrations
Monthly supplement
Light on the underground
A quoi rêvent les loups (What Wolves Dream Of), Yasmina Khadra, Paris: Julliard 1999. pp274Into the abyss
Yasmina Khadra
All in the detail
Masters of the Trade: Crafts and Craftspeople in Cairo, Pascale Ghazaleh,1750-1850, Cairo Papers in Social Science Volume 22, Number 3, Fall 1999. pp157A serious spinster
Passionate Nomad, Jane Fletcher Geneisse, London: Chatto and Windus, 1999. pp402Written by camera
Ayam Al-Dimoqratiya: Al-Nisa' Al-Misriyat wa Homoum Al-Watan (Days of Democracy: Egyptian Women and National Elections), Ateyyat El-Abnoudy, Cairo: Kassem Press, 1999. pp197Bizarre, perhaps
The Bazaar, Markets and Merchants of the Islamic World, Text by Walter M. Weiss and photographs by Kurt-Michael Westermann, London: Thames & Hudson, 1999. pp256All about Egypt
Egypt: Nile, Desert, and People, Wolfgang and Rosel Jahn, Trans. by Manuela Kunkel and Ian Portman. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press 1999. pp191 + 300 colour illustrationsThrough the mask of Yasmine
Layali Okhra (Other Nights), Mohamed El-Bisatie, Beirut: Al-Aadab Publishing House, 2000. pp180Photohgraphs of Egypt and the Holy land, Francis Frith, Zeitouna Publishing, 1999 --see caption--
To the editor
At a glance
A shorthand guide to the month compiled by Mahmoud El-Wardani* Hikmet Al-Missriyeen (The Wisdom of Egyptians), introduced and edited by Mohamed El-Sayed Said, Cairo: The Cairo Centre for Human Rights, 1999. pp273
* Ashr Sanawat maa Farouq (Ten Years with Farouq), Karim Thabit, Cairo: Al-Shorouq, 2000. pp472 (Adel Hammouda and Me), Ahmed Fouad Negm, Cairo: Zeinab Publishing House, 2000. pp108
* Mirayat Al-Dhat Al-Okhra (Mirror of the Other Self), Sabri Hafiz, Cairo: General Organisation for Cultural Palaces, Aswat Adabiya Series, 1999. pp365
* Moqarabat Al-Abad (Nearing Eternity), Gamal El-Ghitani, Cairo: Nahdit Misr Publications, 2000. pp96
* Al-Kotob: Wighat Nazar (Books: Viewpoints), monthly magazine, issue no. 13, February 2000 Cairo: The Egyptian Company for Arab and International Publication
* Al-Fonoun Al-Sha'biya (The Folk Arts), a specialised periodical, issue no.58-9, Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organisation
* Al-Osour Al-Jadida (New Eras), monthly magazine, issue no. 5, February 2000, Cairo: Sinai Publishing House
* Nizwa, quarterly magazine, issue no.11, Oman: The Oman Institution for Journalism, Publication and Mass Communication
* Al-Hilal, monthly magazine, issue no. 2, February 2000, Cairo: Al-Hilal Publishing House
Books is a monthly supplement of Al-Ahram Weekly appearing every second Thursday of the month. We welcome contributions and letters on subjects raised in this supplement. Material may be edited for length and clarity; and should be addressed to Mona Anis, Books Editor, Al-Ahram Weekly, Galaa St., Cairo, Arab Republic of Egypt; Faz: +202 578 6089; E-mail: m.anis@ahram.org.eg
For advertising call +202-5780233; Fax +202 394 1866To see other book supplements go to the ARCHIVES index.
Illustrations courtesy of International Commitee of the Red Cross
"Folk drawings and tales", Cairo, 1996
All about Egypt
Reviewed by Jill Kamil
I cannot recommend this book too highly. Were I called upon to suggest a single coffee-table book on Egypt to a potential buyer dithering in confusion before the plethora of large, glossy publications on the shelves these days, it would be Wolfgang and Rosel Jahn's Egypt: Nile, Desert, and People. Printed in Germany to high standards of quality, the book is the product of much experience in the country, and in its pages Egypt is captured in a series of powerful photographs accompanied by a concise, accurate and informative text.
The word 'Egypt' tends to summon up images of pyramids, temples and tombs but, despite Herodotus' statement that "Egypt... contains more wonders than any other land, and is pre-eminent above all the countries of the world for works that one can hardly describe", the country is not a land of monuments alone. And this swiftly becomes apparent in this book. For 'Egypt' is also the mega-city of modern Cairo with its medieval monuments; it is the Nile, the longest river in Africa, flowing northward to meet the Mediterranean and flanked by fields that succeed one another in verdant monotony; it is the desert with its camels and Bedouin; it is the Battle of Alamein, and it is oases like the legendary Zahzura, which was immortalised for international audiences in Michael Ondaatje's film The English Patient. The country is all this and more, because each is a part of the whole experience of diversity and contrast, ancient and modern, want and plenty that it provides. While books of this sort have hitherto tended either to concentrate on Pharaonic, Islamic or Coptic monuments alone, or have been specialised studies on one aspect or another of the country's history, this book breaks down these barriers, and could only have been written by people with an intimate knowledge of the country.
Wolfgang and Rosel Jahn lived for six years in Cairo and made 14 subsequent visits during which they deepened their understanding and knowledge of the land and its people. Egypt thus became, in a sense, a second home for them, and their Egypt: Nile, Desert, and People covers the diverse geographical regions of the country in separate sections. The authors manage to provide comprehensive coverage of the country's rich and complex culture, presented in an easy format and with some of the most stunning colour photographs I have ever seen.
The first section is entitled "City of Cities" and, in the words of the authors, among the crowds of modern Cairo "we find immigrants from all over the country... The history of the modern metropolis is, at the same time, the history of Egypt." The photographs chosen to illustrate this section include the obelisk at Heliopolis (ancient city of the sun), the sacred tree of the Holy Virgin, a monastery, an icon and an ancient Egyptian relief. These are images not presented haphazardly, but rather they have been chosen to illustrate cultural continuity. There are mosques and moulids, churches and khans, pages out of A Thousand and One Nights accompanied by contemporary scenes such as bread-sellers carrying baladi bread to market on palm-stalk frames, a traditional spice market, the pomp of a wedding party, the fine architectural detail of an Islamic monument.
The captions to these photographs are generally concise, informative and accurate, and dry historical detail, such as the various ancient dynasties, are made meaningful through successive illustrations. Coming right up to date, quotations from Naguib Mahfouz ("By nature I am a story-teller...") are accompanied by pictures of coffee-houses, a man with a water-pipe, a pavement book-seller, and an inconspicuous blind alley between two mosques in Old Cairo, the one illuminating the other. Egypt's modern art movement is not forgotten, nor is the cinema industry. "Cairo -- the Never-ending Story" is how the Jahns end their section on Egypt's capital.
A brilliant photograph of market-day introduces the next chapter on The Nile Delta and the Fayoum. Peasant women are pictured in the foreground selling vegetables and fruit; in the middle distance other women balance baskets on their heads and children peer round their skirts; men, sometimes in white galabiyas, sometimes in shirt and trousers, mill around the piles of produce; to the rear is a background of greenery and the white dome of a mosque against a blue sky. The chapter takes the reader to the famed waterwheels of the Fayoum and elaborates on the area known as the "granary of Egypt". In a visit to the potters of Nazla village we see vessels stacked in tower-like kilns. These are mostly traditional, unglazed water vessels, and the text provides fascinating details concerning their manufacture, such as the fact that they are not watertight, since the chopped straw in the clay leaves fine pores that allow a small amount of water to percolate and evaporate thus keeping the water inside cool.
In covering Alexandria the authors describe the brilliant city founded, according to classical historians, when the great conqueror Alexander was en route to Persia and decided that the site of a ruined pre-historic harbour provided ideal conditions for a new port city in his name. Photographs display ruins that evoke visions of the legendary white marble palace of Cleopatra and the grave of Alexander the Great, while space is also given to scenes of the modern city with its 25-kilometre corniche and Atarin quarter where second-hand dealers' shops are stuffed with furniture in the 'empire style' along with antique silver, fine glass and "kitsch of every kind".
The Western or Libyan Desert is the subject of the next chapter, and here we are carried into a dramatic display of erosion. "Heat, cold, wind, and water are slowly shifting a whole layer of Eocene chalk north-eastwards and, in the process, have formed sometimes breathtaking chalk sculptures," write the authors. "A tour on a mild winter day in absolute calm through this bizarre landscape seems like a walk in a different world..." Curiosities of the desert, such as 'sand roses' and a 'melon field', can be seen, not to mention the desert wildlife of lizards and snakes. Ample photographs show water in the desert, real or mirage, and oases such as Farafra, Dakhla, Kharga and Siwa, each enhanced by descriptions that give the kind of attention to detail that encourages close reading.
Given the very high quality both of the photographic reproductions and of the text, it is unfortunate that the book's dust cover should be so uninspired. This glossy but hazy photograph of Abu Simbel by night does little justice to the quality of the photographs to be found inside the book. This is a pity, since Egypt: Nile, Desert, and People is an Egypt that I know, and presents an Egypt that, in all its vast diversity, should be known. In general, however, the Wolfgangs' book on Egypt is an undertaking that deserves notice, recommendation and success.
