Alaa Al Aswany

Al Aswany, Alaa, 1957-, Egyptian author, b. Cairo. The son of a novelist-lawyer, he was trained as a dentist at Cairo Univ. (grad. 1980) and the Univ. of Illinois at Chicago (M.S., 1987) and has combined an active dental practice with a successful literary career. Al Aswany came to world attention with the publication of his novel The Yacoubian Building (2002, tr. 2006), which has since been translated into more than 20 languages. In bluntly simple language, the novel depicts contemporary Egypt through the stories of residents of one Cairo building, portraying severe class inequities, the corruption and hypocrisy of the rich and powerful, pervasive repression and violence, and the excesses of Islamic fundamentalism. Al Aswany's next book, Chicago (2007, tr. 2008), is a campus novel of clashing Egyptian and American cultures set in the post-9/11 era. Since 1993 Al Aswany has written a monthly newspaper column on political and social issues; on the left politically, he has been an outspoken critic of President Mubarak's regime. He also is the author of numerous short stories, some of which (and a novella) are translated in Friendly Fire: Ten Tales of Today's Cairo (2009).