Новинки Саналлаха Ибрагима

The year is 1973. An Egyptian historian, Dr. Shukri, pursues a year of non-degree graduate studies in Moscow, the presumed heart of the socialist utopia. Through his eyes, the reader receives a guided tour of the sordid stagnation of Brezhnev-era Soviet life: intra-Soviet ethnic tensions; Russian retirees unable to afford a tin of meat; a trio of drunks splitting a bottle of vodka on the sidewalk; a Kirgiz roommate who brings his Russian girlfriend to live in his four-person dormitory room; black-marketeering Arab embassy officials; liberated but insecure Russian women; and Arab students’ debates about the geographically distant October 1973 War. Shukri records all this in the same numbly factual style familiar to fans of Sonallah Ibrahim’s That Smell, punctuating it with the only redeeming sources of beauty available: classical music LPs, newly acquired Russian vocabulary, achingly beautiful women, and strong Georgian tea.

Based on Ibrahim’s own experience studying at the All-Russian Institute of Cinematography in Moscow from 1971 to 1973, Ice offers a powerful exploration of Arab confusion, Soviet dysfunction, and the fragility of leftist revolutionary ideals.

A city – known for its light-heartedness, vibrancy and capacity for fun – is ripped apart by war.

A young man – full of the vim, vigour and desires of youth – refuses to be allow his spirit to be dampened . . .

November, 1980. An Egyptian writer has chosen the wrong time to come to Beirut in search of a publisher for his controversial book. Men with machine guns are on every street corner. When the writer meets an old friend from his revolutionary student days, he is introduced to two fascinating women: idealistic film-maker Antoinette and Lamia, the seductive wife of his would-be publisher. His attentions inevitably turn towards the two women, but the background rumble of strife and struggle becomes increasingly hard to ignore.

Based on the author’s real-life experience of the civil war in Lebanon, Beirut, Beirut is an exploration of how, even in the midst of chaos and violence, universals such as love, desire and yearning are still always our guiding forces.

That Smell is Sonallah Ibrahim’s modernist masterpiece and one of the most influential novels written in Arabic since WWII. Composed after a five-year term in prison, the semi-autobiographical story follows a recently released political prisoner as he wanders through Cairo, adrift in his native city. Living under house arrest, he tries to write of his tortuous experience, but instead smokes, spies on the neighbors, visits old lovers, and marvels at Egypt’s new consumer culture. Published in 1966, That Smell was immediately banned and the print-run confiscated. The original, uncensored version did not appear in Egypt for another twenty years.

For this edition, translator Robyn Creswell has also included an annotated selection of the author’s Notes from Prison, Ibrahim’s prison diaries—a personal archive comprising hundreds of handwritten notes copied onto Bafra-brand cigarette papers and smuggled out of jail. These stark, intense writings shed unexpected light on the sources and motives of Ibrahim’s groundbreaking novel. Also included in this edition is Ibrahim’s celebrated essay about the writing and reception of That Smell.

Если авторы принадлежат к числу самых извесгных в настоящее время в Египте прозаиков, то переводчики - известные российские арабисты, имеют большой опыт перевода арабской литературы. Роман «Любовь в изг­нании» Баха Тахира в переводе Валерии Кирпиченко и повестью «Комитет» Саналлаха Ибрагима в переводе Дмитрия Фролова и Т. Оболенской.
Романисты Баха Тахир и Саналлах Ибрахим принадлежат к так называемому поколению «новой волны» в египетской литературе. В свое время возникновение этого молодежного течения вызвало немало споров, и весьма шумных, в египетской литературной критике. Спорили о причинах «бунта» молодых, о том, насколько серьезны их претензии на радикальное «обновление» литературы, пытались уяснить их литературную генеа­логию, понять, не являются ли их эксперименты лишь бурей в стакане воды, простым подражанием европейской литературной моде. Некоторые из молодых утверждали, что они «поколение без отцов», но это, конечно, не так.

This unusual and much lauded novel tells the story of the life of an Egyptian woman - the eponymous Zaat - during the regimes of three Egyptian presidents: Abdel Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak. Imbued with an Egyptian sense of humor and deeply rooted in the culture and politics of the modern period, the novel takes a humorous but often black look at the changes that have occurred in Egypt over the past few decades. Zaat's life experiences and relationships are set against economic and social upheavals in a style that is both sophisticated and bawdy, highly ironic and often extremely poignant.

Zaat's story is interspersed and illustrated with extracts from newspapers of the day - headlines, articles, captions, death notices, advertisements -reflecting events and incidents contemporary with her life. Beautifully put together with bitter and cutting irony, they tell of corruption, financial scandals, torture, foreign debt, and social problems. The heroine epitomizes the hopes, dreams, and ambitions of simple folk tossed about on the stormy sea of modernization, consumerism, and the ever-present mirage of new wealth. Zaat is a brilliant social commentary that provides keen insights into how Egypt has come to be the way it is today.

Книга на французском языке.