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This is a vivid story of an Egyptian middle-class family, who lives in Cairo. In the course of the novel, the author brings back real stories of good relationships and mutual understanding between the Muslims and Christians, the two components of the Egyptian society.
The period covered by the novel extends over two decades, namely, 1940s and 1950s. It was a very critical period in the Egyptian history, a period of great conflicts and happenings, which entailed drastic changes in the Egyptian Society.
The author deals with these conflicts, happenings and the changes in creative manner to make the background of the novel.
The author introduces his personalities with their different aptitudes, wisdom, and prejudices, through their behavior and reactions towards each other and towards the external events. Their involvements with, and discussion about their own problems or the public events express their inner feelings, anxieties, and mental characteristics. This is the dramatic story of Tarik and his family, the Young Egyptian who preferred to escape for his freedom and live abroad in dignity, rather than to stay at home suffering from injustice and humiliation.
It is a fascinating enjoyable and authentic story, based on real life experiences of many Egyptians. Reading this novel will take you down into the depths of the Egyptians heart and mind, where wisdom and madness are mixed together, laughing jokes surmounting sadness and misery, and all human conflicting feelings and attitudes.
As an Australian of Egyptian origins and background myself, I found this novel to be most enjoyable as well as informative in the same time. And as a former Expert and Consultant for an international organization concerned with development of education and cultures of the world, I would recommend this novel as a good example of literary work that can help create mutual understanding among different peoples of the world. Such understanding is badly needed for our modern world, which suffers from hatred, wars and terrorism due mainly to the lack of mutual understanding.
Now Samiha has reached the age of fifteen and Nader, the firstborn son, forces her to leave school. How will she cope with this situation while her elder sister has completed her studies and accepts an arranged marriage. Read more about “A World He Left Behind”