While Egyptian culture has not had much impact in the West, many Egyptian actors and musicians are revered cultural icons throughout the Arab world. The 2011 revolution spawned a cultural outpouring like no other, and several visual artists have been successful in the global art market. Egypt’s cultural identity and the right of all Egyptians to be active participants in the cultural process is one of the big achievements of the 2011 revolution.
Naguib Mahfouz, who won a Nobel Prize for his work, was for many years just about the only Egyptian writer frequently read in the West. Things are changing, however. In the last decade several writers have tried to define a new Egyptian novelistic style, striving for a fresh language and approach, and many of these are now being translated into English.
Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988, Naguib Mahfouz was one of the most important 20th-century writers of Arabic literature. Born in 1911 in Cairo’s Islamic quarter, Mahfouz began writing when he was 17 and published over 50 novels and 350 short stories, as well as movie scripts, plays and journalism. His first efforts were influenced by the European greats, but over the course of his career he developed a voice that was uniquely Egyptian, and drew its inspiration from the talk in the coffee houses and the dialect of Cairo’s streets. In 1994 he was the victim of a knife attack that left him partially paralysed. The attack was a response to a book Mahfouz had written, which was a thinly disguised allegory of the life of the great religious leaders including Prophet Mohammed. Mahfouz died in 2006 after falling and sustaining a head injury.
Mahfouz came out of a strong literary tradition. Other respected writers working at the time included Taha Hussein, a blind author and intellectual who spent much of his life in trouble with whichever regime happened to be in power; the Alexandrian playwright Tawfiq Al Hakim; and Yusuf Idris, a writer of powerful short stories.
Egypt’s female writers have also enjoyed international success. Feminist and activist Nawal El Saadawi’s fictional work Woman at Point Zero has been translated into 28 languages. An outspoken critic on behalf of women, she is marginalised at home – her nonfiction book The Hidden Face of Eve, which criticises the role of women in the Arab world, is banned in Egypt. Those interested in learning more about her fascinating and inspirational life should read her autobiography Walking Through Fire, which was published in 2002.
Born in Cairo, Ahdaf Soueif writes in English as well as Arabic, but most of her work has yet to appear in Arabic. Her most successful novel, The Map of Love, set in Egypt, was short-listed for the Booker prize, and her other novels are Aisha, Sandpiper and In the Eye of the Sun. In early 2012 she published her memoir: Cairo: My City, Our Revolution.
ABeer in the Snooker Club (1964) by Waguih Ghali is a fantastic novel of youthful angst set against a backdrop of 1950s revolutionary Egypt and literary London. It’s the Egyptian Catcher in the Rye.
AThe Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz is usually considered Mahfouz’s masterpiece; this generational saga of family life is rich in colour and detail, and has earned comparisons with Dickens and Zola.
ALove in Exile and Sunset Oasis by Bahaa Taher, one of the most respected living writers in the Arab world, have both won awards.
AThe Harafish (1977) by Naguib Mahfouz would be our desert-island choice if we were allowed only one work by Mahfouz. This is written in an episodic, almost folkloric style that owes much to the tradition of The Thousand and One Nights.
AProud Beggars (1955), The Jokers (1964) and The Colours of Infamy (1999) by Albert Cossery were all recently translated and published following the author’s death in 2008. His novels were written in French, and have a cult following among Egyptophiles.
AZayni Barakat (1974) by Gamal Al Ghitani is a drama set in Cairo during the waning years of the Mamluk era. It was made into an extremely successful local TV drama in the early 1990s.
As well known globally as Naguib Mahfouz, contemporary dentist-turned-novelist Alaa Al Aswany writes about Egyptians, poverty and class differences. His 2002 blockbuster The Yacoubian Building is a bleak but compelling snapshot of contemporary Cairo seen through the stories of the occupants of a Downtown building. The world’s biggest-selling novel in Arabic, it is remarkable for the way it depicts Egypt towards the end of Mubarak’s rule and for introducing archetypes that hadn’t previously been captured in Arabic literature. Al Aswany’s subsequent writing – Chicago, Friendly Fire and The Automobile Club of Egypt have not lived up to the earlier promise.
Salwa Bakr tackles taboo subjects such as sexual prejudice and social inequality. Her work includes the novels The Golden Chariot and the excellent The Man from Bashmour.
Youssef Rakha’s work is firmly rooted in Cairo. His award-winning The Book of the Sultan’s Seal tells of a search for identity and also happens to be a great read. In Crocodiles he weaves a story around the events of 2011.
One of the most promising of a very vibrant new generation of writers is Mansoura Ez Eldin, whose novel Maryam’s Maze is the wonderfully written story of a woman trying to find her way in the confusion all around her. Beyond Paradise (2009) is also rewarding. Other younger writers to look out for include Amina Zaydan (Red Wine), Hamdi Abu Golayyel (A Dog with No Tail) and Miral Al Tahawy (Blue Aubergine).
Mansoura Ez Eldin This journalist, activist and writer was a voice of the 2011 revolution and her novel Maryam’s Maze is considered a masterpiece of imagination and literary form.
Khaled Al Khamissi His wonderful novel Taxi (2006) consists of essays of the conversations with Cairene taxi drivers, highlighting the Egyptian passion and sense of humour. His second novel is called Noah’s Ark.
Muhammad Aladdin This young novelist and activist is very much part of the new literary scene in Cairo, and his second novel, The Gospel According to Adam (2006), set in Midan Tahrir, examines a society that has lost all certainties. A Well-Trained Stray was published in Arabic in 2014.
Ahmed Alaidy The author of Being Abbas el Abd (2003) writes with profound cynicism and humour about the despair of Egypt’s youth.
Ibrahim Abdel Meguid No One Sleeps in Alexandria (1999) is an antidote to the mythical Alexandria of Lawrence Durrell. The first book in a trilogy, it portrays the city in the same period as the Quartet but as viewed by two poor Egyptians. His latest novel, the last in the trilogy, is Clouds over Alexandria.
Miral Al Tahawy The Tent (1998) is a bleak but beautiful tale of the slow descent into madness of a crippled Bedouin girl.
Nael El Toukhy His novel Women of the Karentina (2013) describes an imaginary underworld in Alexandria, containing a rich mix of humour and misery.
AThe Alexandria Quartet (1962) by Lawrence Durrell is perhaps essential reading, but to visit Alexandria looking for the city of the Quartet is a bit like heading to London hoping to run into Mary Poppins.
ABaby Love (1997) by Louisa Young is a smart, hip novel that shimmies between Shepherd’s Bush in London and the West Bank of Luxor, as a former belly dancer, now single mother, skirts romance and a violent past.
ACity of Gold (1992) by Len Deighton is a thriller set in wartime Cairo, elevated by solid research. The period detail is fantastic and brings the city to life.
ADeath on the Nile (1937) by Agatha Christie draws on Christie’s experiences of a winter in Upper Egypt. An absolute must if you’re booked on a cruise.
AAlthough the well-known film of the same name bears little resemblance to the novel, Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient (1992) – a story of love, desert and destiny in WWII – remains a beautifully written, poetic novel.
AEgypt during the war serves as the setting for the trials and traumas of a despicable bunch of expats in The Levant Trilogy (1980) by Olivia Manning. It has some fabulous descriptions of life in Cairo during WWII, and was filmed by the BBC as Fortunes of War starring Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson.
AA section that is set on a Nile cruise is only a small part of John Fowles’s brilliant novel Daniel Martin (1977), but his descriptions are razor sharp.
AMoon Tiger (1987) by Penelope Lively is an award-winning romance, very moving in parts, with events that occurred in Cairo during WWII at its heart.
AThe Photographer’s Wife (1996) by Robert Sole is one of three historical romances by this French journalist set in late-19th-century Egypt. They’re slow-going but worth it for the fine period detail and emotive stories.
In the halcyon years of the 1940s and ‘50s, Cairo’s film studios turned out more than 100 movies annually, filling cinemas throughout the Arab world with charming musicals that are still classics of regional cinema. Until the 1980s Cairo remained a major player in the film industry, but currently only about 20 films are made each year. The chief reason for the decline, according to the producers, was excessive government taxation and restrictive censorship. Asked what sort of things are censored, one film industry figure replied, ‘Sex, politics, religion – that’s all’. However, at least one Cairo film critic has suggested that another reason for the demise of local film is that so much of what is made is of poor quality. The ingredients of the typical Egyptian film are shallow plot lines, farcical slapstick humour, over-the-top acting and perhaps a little belly dancing.
One Egyptian director who consistently stood apart from the mainstream was Youssef Chahine (1926–2008). He directed over 35 films, has been called Egypt’s Fellini and was honoured at Cannes in 1997 with a lifetime achievement award. His later and more well-known works are 1999’s Al Akhar (The Other), 1997’s Al Masir (Destiny) and 1994’s Al Muhagir (The Emigrant). Others to look out for are Al Widaa Bonaparte (Adieu Bonaparte), a historical drama about the French occupation, and Iskandariyya Ley? (Alexandria Why?), an autobiographical meditation on the city of Chahine’s birth.
Since the 2011 revolution a new wave of filmmakers has entered the Egyptian cinema scene and are taking Egyptian cinema into exciting and uncharted territory. Jehane Noujaim won an Oscar nomination and three Emmys for The Square (2013), which looks at events in Tahrir from 2011–13. In early 2014 Zawya, a new cinema in downtown Cairo, opened, showing art-house movies and work by young Egyptian filmmakers.
Several Egyptian films have won international awards in recent years, although some are banned in Egypt for being critical of the new regime.
A Jehane Noujaim’s The Square was shortlisted for the Best Documentary Award at the 2014 Oscars.
A Mohamed Khan, who has made a comeback with Fatat El Masnaa (Factory Girl; 2013), a film about women seeking independence in a society that place great restrictions on them.
A In Harag W’ Marag (Chaos, Order; 2012) Mohamed Khan’s daughter Nadine Khan tells a story of two tough youths vying for a girl in a poor but lively and exotic-looking Cairo neighbourhood.
A Rags and Tatters (2013) by Ahmad Abdalla, another brilliant award-winning film, is an honest take on the Egyptian revolution, and unusual, as it is for the most part silent.
A Villa 69 (2013), director Ayten Amin’s debut film, shows how Hussein (Khaled Abul-Naga), a solitary man in his 50s who lives alone in a beautiful but dilapidated villa, is forced to deal with reality when his sister and her grandson come to stay.
A Coming Forth By Day (2012), the debut feature film by writer-director Hala Lotfy, shows a small family being worn down by the indignities of everyday life: sickness, money problems, rejection, restlessness, frustration.
A The Nile Hilton Incident (2017) is a thriller about a policeman on the make who is called in to investigate a murder in pre-2011 Cairo.
Forty years after her death, the ‘Star of the Orient’, Umm Kulthum, still provokes huge emotion in Egypt. But the new kids on the block are making a loud noise. The latest sound heard in Cairo is mahraganat, created by artists from some of the poorest suburbs and slums, who are shouting about their disenchantment with their situation.
Classical Arabic music peaked in the 1940s and ‘50s. These were the golden days of a rushing tide of nationalism and then, later, of Nasser’s rule when Cairo was the virile heart of the Arab-speaking world. Its singers were icons and, through radio, their impassioned words captured and inflamed the spirits of listeners from Algiers to Baghdad.
Chief among them was Umm Kulthum, the most famous Arab singer of the 20th century. Her protracted love songs and qasa’id (long poems) were the very expression of the Arab world’s collective identity. Egypt’s love affair with Umm Kulthum was such that on the afternoon of the first Thursday of each month, streets would become deserted as the whole country sat beside a radio to listen to her regular live-broadcast performances. She had her male counterparts in Abdel Halim Hafez and Farid Al Attrache, but they never attracted anything like the devotion accorded ‘As Sitt’ (the Lady). She retired after a concert in 1972. When she died three years later, millions of grieving Egyptians poured onto the streets of Cairo. The Umm Kulthum Museum opened in Cairo in 2002.
Ahmed Adawiyya did for Arabic music what punk did to popular music in the West. Throwing out traditional melodies and melodramas, his backstreet, streetwise and, to some, politically subversive songs captured the spirit of the times and dominated popular culture throughout the 1970s. He set the blueprint for a new kind of music known as al jeel (the generation), characterised by a clattering, hand-clapping rhythm overlaid with synthesised twirling and a catchy, repetitive vocal. This evolved into a more Western-style pop, helmed by Amr Diab, who is often described as the Arab world’s Ricky Martin.
Adawiyya’s legacy also spawned something called shaabi (from the word for popular), much cruder than al jeel, and often with satirical or politically provocative lyrics. The acceptable face of shaabi is TV-friendly Hakim, whose albums regularly sell around the million mark. In 2010 shaabi singer Mohamed Mounir brought out a song Ezay? (How?), that was banned for being too political; he brought it out again with the backdrop of the people in Midan Tahrir during the 2011 revolution.
The uprisings of the revolutionary youth in Cairo and elsewhere was fuelled by rap and hip-hop music, the so-called shebabi (youth) music. The sound of Cairo now is mahraganat, a relentless mix of drumbeats and auto-tuned rap that started in Cairo’s slums but has been likened to grime music. The artists often record at home, and spread their music via the internet. Diesel, AKA Mohamed Saber, is one of mahraganat’s most innovative artists, while Sadat, AKA Al Sadat Abdelaziz, is its biggest star. The music expresses the reality of young people, using their slang to express their struggle. They sing about revolution, drugs and sexual harassment, and mainly perform live in street weddings.
The following songs and bands formed part of the soundtrack of the 2011 revolution. Some are available internationally; all are on YouTube.
A Irhal (Leave) by Ramy Essam – This song made Ramy Essam one of the stars of the revolution; he sang it on stage on 11 February, when it was announced that Mubarak had gone.
A Eid Fi Eid (Hand in Hand) by The Arabian Knightz – One of the first Egyptian rap bands to release music about the revolution, they filmed a video for their track in Midan Tahrir.
A Rebel by The Arabian Knightz, featuring Lauryn Hill – This track was recorded during the first days of the revolution.
A Thawra by Rayess Bek – Lebanese band sings about and for the revolution with a background of the slogan ‘as shab yurid thawra’ (‘the people want revolution’) chanted in Midan Tahrir.
A Sout El Hurriya (Voice of Freedom) by Amir Eid, Hany Adel, Hawary and Sherif – The YouTube clip shows the song sung by people in Midan Tahrir.
Egypt’s visual arts scene was as depressed as the country until 2011, when it was transformed by the uprising against the Mubarak regime. The artist and musician Ahmed Bassiouny, killed on the third day of the uprising against Mubarak, had his work shown posthumously at the 2011 Venice Biennale. With the downfall of the president, the art scene entered a period of chaotic freedom that saw many other Egyptian artists enjoy international acclaim.
Until the rise of Sisi, graffiti artists made the streets their canvas, as a way of taking ownership of public space. In post-revolution Cairo, street art is forbidden. Ganzeer, possibly Egypt’s most famous street artist and who created some of the strongest and most politically engaged images, now lives and works in the US. Many others have also moved abroad.
And yet the visual arts scene continues to flourish, helped in part by the support of contemporary art spaces such as Townhouse Gallery and Mashrabia Gallery in Cairo.
Chant Avedissian (www.chantavedissian.com) Armenian-Egyptian artist whose stencils of iconic celebrities from the past have become very much in demand with Middle Eastern art collectors.
Youssef Nabil (www.youssefnabil.com) Egyptian artist living in New York who makes hand-coloured gelatin silver prints of photographs of Egyptian and international celebrities.
Ghada Amer (www.ghadaamer.com) Egyptian artist who embroiders on abstract canvases that deal with female sexuality and eroticism.
Wael Shawky One of the most powerful and poignant voices coming out of Egypt, Shawky reinterprets faith, myth and history through video installations.
Tomb paintings in Egypt prove that the tradition of formalised dancing goes back as far as the pharaohs. During medieval times the ghawazee (cast of dancers), travelled with storytellers and poets and performed publicly. In the 19th century the Muslim authorities were outraged that Muslim women were performing for ‘infidel’ men on their Grand Tour, and dancers were banished from Cairo to Esna. Belly dancing began to gain credibility and popularity in Egypt with the advent of cinema, which imbued belly dancing with glamour and made household names of a handful of dancers: in the 1990s, Fifi Abdou danced her way to become one of the most famous people in the country.
Since the early 1990s Islamist conservatives have patrolled weddings in poor areas of Cairo and forcibly prevented women from dancing or singing, cutting off a vital source of income for lower-echelon performers. At the same time, a number of high-profile entertainers donned the veil and retired, denouncing their former profession as sinful. Now few Egyptian belly dancers perform in public, and their place has been taken by foreigners mainly dancing for tourists. The future for Egyptian belly dancing looks uncertain.