Plain Talk

By Mursi Saad El-Din

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Nehad Selaiha provides some notes on the 9th Festival for Modern Dance Theatre which has just ended

The American University in Cairo Press never stops enriching the Egyptian library with books about my country. With its series, running into dozens, indeed hundreds of books on Egypt, the AUC Press can rightly claim to be the first, if not the only, press that has specialised in presenting Egypt to English language readers.

The AUC Press recent addition to its series includes three books on Egypt: Jason Thompson's A History of Egypt, LL Wynn's Pyramids and Nightclubs, and, last but not in any way least, Lesley Labibidi's Cairo Street Stories. As Thompson's book, which could be considered a concise history of Egypt, was reviewed on this page last week, I shall concentrate on the other two books. But before doing that, I strongly urge language schools in Egypt to consider using this book as a reference source on the history of Egypt.

Wynn's Pyramids and Nightclubs, on the other hand, is a light albeit gripping book on present day Egypt. In the introduction with the title "From the Pyramids to the Night Club on Pyramids road," the author writes about two Egypts. The first is a mystical, antique land, a land of the Pyramids and towering granite statues "of long-dead kings and queens, of obelisks where one can walk through ruins, dwarfed by huge columns carved with lotus flowers." The other is a vividly alive Egypt where "its pharaonic ruins are mere background for more modern dramas."

This other Egypt is one in which the area around the Pyramids have become a place for lovers to meet. In this Egypt "Cairo is the centre of the world." A centre "the only time to visit is the summer, when throngs from all over the Arab world come to Cairo for vacation," according to the author. During this season Egypt comes alive after sunset "with pinpricks of light from street lamps and towering office buildings and neon shop signs. It is the country of night clubs and cabarets which are open from late evening until six or seven o'clock in the morning." And all these pleasure places are a short distance from the Pyramids.

The third book, Cairo's Street Stories by Lesley Lababida, claims to explore "the city's statues, squares, bridges, gardens and sidewalk cafes." But in fact it is much more than that, it is the history of Egypt dealt with in a unique approach. Every one of these landmarks tells a story and contributes a good part of our history. With a number of beautiful pictures we get to know leading figures in our history, Omar Makram, Soliman Pasha, Mariettes Pasha, Mustafa Kamil, Mohamed Farid, Hafez Ibrahim, Ahmed Shawky, Saad Zaghloul, Talaat Harb, Taha Hussein, Naguib Mafouz, Ahmad Maher, Um Kulthum and Abdel Wahab. It is a joyful experience to have their statues in a book which serves as a reminder of what those people contributed to our history. In my opinion this book should be translated into Arabic and become a textbook in Arabic schools.