It is as juicy and satisfying as a shiny apple, its taste both strange and familiar, compassionate and bitter. The book is elaborate to bursting point, but always controlled, always whole. In the course of this unforgettable novel, these disparate lives converge, careening inexorably toward an explosive conclusion. The first edition of The Yacoubian Building (2002) sold out within four weeks, and the novel became the Arab worlds No 1 bestseller for five successive years, selling more than 250,000 copies in. The son of a doorman an older man with an endless fascination for women the secret second wife of a. Older residents cling to the faded glories and old-world charm of its past, while newer tenants busily prevent eager arrivals from usurping more space in a building that reflects 70 years of Egypt's social and political upheavals. Alaa al-Aswany’s novel The Yacoubian Building (2002, Arabic ) tells the story of a group of people loosely bound together by dint of living in the same crumbling building a real place in downtown Cairo. Once home to the crème de la crème of Egyptian society, The Yacoubian Building is now past its prime.

Structured as a series of intersecting vignettes, The Yacoubian Building deals with themes of sex, power, longing and despair. Set in the late 20th century Egypt, after the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, the Yacoubian Building started filling up with people from Egypts lower class, while some others from the upper and middle classes stayed put. Alaa Al Aswany’s mesmerising The Yacoubian Building provides a vivid glimpse into contemporary Egypt’s many contradictions where cosmopolitan past clashes with a tumultuous present. The Yacoubian Building provides a glimpse into the complicated lives of residents of an Egyptian building.

The yacoubian building