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Empty Cages: A Novel
Winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, Empty Cages is an urgent and raw confessional of memory and family and all that is lost and won in one woman's lifetime
The discovery of an old tin of chocolates, its contents long ago devoured, marks the entry into this intimate story that reaches back through a lifetime of memories in search of self and home.
In celebration and suffering, triumph and disappointment, Qandil’s voice is unflinching, revealing both a determination to speak the truth and a poetic sensitivity that is disarming. Reflecting on a family disintegrating—and with it, perhaps, a whole way of life—memories of a happy childhood melt away to reveal the fecklessness of selfish older brothers, a father’s addiction, a mother’s illness, and the violence and death—both literal and figurative—of those nearby.
Recipient of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, this stunning fictional debut marks the arrival of a stunning new voice.
The discovery of an old tin of chocolates, its contents long ago devoured, marks the entry into this intimate story that reaches back through a lifetime of memories in search of self and home.
In celebration and suffering, triumph and disappointment, Qandil’s voice is unflinching, revealing both a determination to speak the truth and a poetic sensitivity that is disarming. Reflecting on a family disintegrating—and with it, perhaps, a whole way of life—memories of a happy childhood melt away to reveal the fecklessness of selfish older brothers, a father’s addiction, a mother’s illness, and the violence and death—both literal and figurative—of those nearby.
Recipient of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, this stunning fictional debut marks the arrival of a stunning new voice.
260 pages, Paperback
Published May 27, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 7, 2025
Real Rating: 4.5* of five
The Publisher Says: Winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, Empty Cages is an urgent and raw confessional of memory and family and all that is lost and won in one woman's lifetime
The discovery of an old tin of chocolates, its contents long ago devoured, marks the entry into this intimate story that reaches back through a lifetime of memories in search of self and home.
In celebration and suffering, triumph and disappointment, Qandil’s voice is unflinching, revealing both a determination to speak the truth and a poetic sensitivity that is disarming. Reflecting on a family disintegrating—and with it, perhaps, a whole way of life—memories of a happy childhood melt away to reveal the fecklessness of selfish older brothers, a father’s addiction, a mother’s illness, and the violence and death—both literal and figurative—of those nearby.
Recipient of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, this stunning fictional debut marks the arrival of a stunning new voice.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Lyrically examining disappointment as a goad to seek one's own path is not an ordinary novelistic choice. Author Qandil chooses that course in this story of Fatma designing a life that suits her, that agrees with her, and that excludes the always unpleasant reality of family failures and failings. Quite radical for a woman in Egypt...or anywhere for that matter...to choose.
I can see the reasons Author Qandil was awarded a literary prize, and it is meet and right that she should receive one named for Nahfouz. Adam Talib has rendered her prose into fluid, mellifluous English, so I can feel the richness and harmony of her native language underpinning the translation. The story commences with meditations on a Cadbury's chocolates tin, and for several pages we follow Fatma's thoughts and memories as they swirl and coruscate to form a story out of what I'd see as trash.
When poets write prose it can be a beautiful gift. Poet and novelist Qandil's story exemplifies this in her (I assume, perhaps incorrectly) autobiographical novel. I was never sure, nor do I feel I was expected to be, how much Fatma was Everywoman, and how much was generalized from the unending fight against the plight of women in a patriarchal world.
That plight is exemplified by novel-Fatma's cultural expectation of her advantageous (to the men in her family) marriage. She bears much cultural weight in coping alone (dead mother, only girl) with her addict father and her unbearably narcissistic brothers. Marriage she flatly rejects. Takes bold, brassy confidence to do that, and succeed...yet never trigger a violent backlash in a world around her that is steeped in misogynistic violence.
Mostly.
Whenever you read a passage and think, "oh, that means this," don't get too invested in that interpretation. Author Qandil does not traffic in certainty or security or any other absolutes. Her story is smoke, water, sunlight...smooth to look at, seeming solid from this way or that of examining it, but grasp it and end up with something you did not expect left in your hands.
That, my friends, is how you know you're seeing Art being made before your dazzled gaze.
Why not five stars? Some details are culture-specific enough as to require explication that does not happen. I think none are holes that make the story unrelatable, just smaller moments that add nothing in English but feel like they did originally. If they did not, then the docked half-star stays the same.
The Publisher Says: Winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, Empty Cages is an urgent and raw confessional of memory and family and all that is lost and won in one woman's lifetime
The discovery of an old tin of chocolates, its contents long ago devoured, marks the entry into this intimate story that reaches back through a lifetime of memories in search of self and home.
In celebration and suffering, triumph and disappointment, Qandil’s voice is unflinching, revealing both a determination to speak the truth and a poetic sensitivity that is disarming. Reflecting on a family disintegrating—and with it, perhaps, a whole way of life—memories of a happy childhood melt away to reveal the fecklessness of selfish older brothers, a father’s addiction, a mother’s illness, and the violence and death—both literal and figurative—of those nearby.
Recipient of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, this stunning fictional debut marks the arrival of a stunning new voice.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Lyrically examining disappointment as a goad to seek one's own path is not an ordinary novelistic choice. Author Qandil chooses that course in this story of Fatma designing a life that suits her, that agrees with her, and that excludes the always unpleasant reality of family failures and failings. Quite radical for a woman in Egypt...or anywhere for that matter...to choose.
I can see the reasons Author Qandil was awarded a literary prize, and it is meet and right that she should receive one named for Nahfouz. Adam Talib has rendered her prose into fluid, mellifluous English, so I can feel the richness and harmony of her native language underpinning the translation. The story commences with meditations on a Cadbury's chocolates tin, and for several pages we follow Fatma's thoughts and memories as they swirl and coruscate to form a story out of what I'd see as trash.
When poets write prose it can be a beautiful gift. Poet and novelist Qandil's story exemplifies this in her (I assume, perhaps incorrectly) autobiographical novel. I was never sure, nor do I feel I was expected to be, how much Fatma was Everywoman, and how much was generalized from the unending fight against the plight of women in a patriarchal world.
That plight is exemplified by novel-Fatma's cultural expectation of her advantageous (to the men in her family) marriage. She bears much cultural weight in coping alone (dead mother, only girl) with her addict father and her unbearably narcissistic brothers. Marriage she flatly rejects. Takes bold, brassy confidence to do that, and succeed...yet never trigger a violent backlash in a world around her that is steeped in misogynistic violence.
Mostly.
Whenever you read a passage and think, "oh, that means this," don't get too invested in that interpretation. Author Qandil does not traffic in certainty or security or any other absolutes. Her story is smoke, water, sunlight...smooth to look at, seeming solid from this way or that of examining it, but grasp it and end up with something you did not expect left in your hands.
That, my friends, is how you know you're seeing Art being made before your dazzled gaze.
Why not five stars? Some details are culture-specific enough as to require explication that does not happen. I think none are holes that make the story unrelatable, just smaller moments that add nothing in English but feel like they did originally. If they did not, then the docked half-star stays the same.
October 31, 2025
Empty Cages: A Novel by Fatma Qandil, translated from the Arabic by Adam Talib, is a fictional memoir in the first-person voice of Fatima, the youngest child in a middle-class Egyptian family. The discovery of an old tin that once contained chocolates is the catalyst that triggers Fatima’s reflections of growing up with two older brothers, an alcohol-addicted father, and a loving and supportive mother.
Beginning in the 1960s to the present day, the novel unfolds in a series of vignettes that are in a non-linear sequence. They include snapshots of Fatima’s childhood, including her recollections of being molested as a child. She traces the gradual economic decline of the family; her father’s increasing addiction to alcohol until his death; the selfishness of her brothers, one of whom disappears in Germany for twenty years, and the other who reluctantly and irregularly sends money to support their mother’s cancer treatments. Throughout it all, Fatima struggles to complete her studies and fulfill her ambition of being a poet.
The diction is unflinchingly honest and candid. The style is confessional and intimate. Fatima identifies her brothers as selfish, narcissistic individuals who virtually abandon their widowed mother. She is well aware her father’s addiction is what dragged them into financial ruin. She is forced to rely on friends and family for help with her mother’s medical expenses.
One of the strengths of the novel is the depiction of Fatima’s relationship with her mother. It is a relationship built on unconditional love, mutual support, and a shared understanding of life’s struggles. They are totally and unequivocally devoted to one another. Fatima describes in graphic detail the challenges of being the sole caregiver to her mother as she battles cancer treatments of chemotherapy and radiation. She displays a herculean patience in treating her mother’s ailing and fragile body in need of constant attention and constant care. She describes the continuous vigil by her mother’s side, remembering to change her IV bag, her bandages, and her diaper. And she does it all with sensitivity and tenderness.
An accomplished poet, Fatma Qandil received the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2022. This, her debut novel, is at times lyrical, at times raw, but always engaging, sensitive, and genuine. Her determination to survive and to remain true to her voice is commendable. How much of this novel is autobiographical is unclear. But what is clear is Fatma Qandil has given her central character a narrative voice that authentically depicts what life is like for a woman struggling to survive in a misogynistic, patriarchal world.
My book reviews are also available at www.tamaraaghajaffar.com
Beginning in the 1960s to the present day, the novel unfolds in a series of vignettes that are in a non-linear sequence. They include snapshots of Fatima’s childhood, including her recollections of being molested as a child. She traces the gradual economic decline of the family; her father’s increasing addiction to alcohol until his death; the selfishness of her brothers, one of whom disappears in Germany for twenty years, and the other who reluctantly and irregularly sends money to support their mother’s cancer treatments. Throughout it all, Fatima struggles to complete her studies and fulfill her ambition of being a poet.
The diction is unflinchingly honest and candid. The style is confessional and intimate. Fatima identifies her brothers as selfish, narcissistic individuals who virtually abandon their widowed mother. She is well aware her father’s addiction is what dragged them into financial ruin. She is forced to rely on friends and family for help with her mother’s medical expenses.
One of the strengths of the novel is the depiction of Fatima’s relationship with her mother. It is a relationship built on unconditional love, mutual support, and a shared understanding of life’s struggles. They are totally and unequivocally devoted to one another. Fatima describes in graphic detail the challenges of being the sole caregiver to her mother as she battles cancer treatments of chemotherapy and radiation. She displays a herculean patience in treating her mother’s ailing and fragile body in need of constant attention and constant care. She describes the continuous vigil by her mother’s side, remembering to change her IV bag, her bandages, and her diaper. And she does it all with sensitivity and tenderness.
An accomplished poet, Fatma Qandil received the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2022. This, her debut novel, is at times lyrical, at times raw, but always engaging, sensitive, and genuine. Her determination to survive and to remain true to her voice is commendable. How much of this novel is autobiographical is unclear. But what is clear is Fatma Qandil has given her central character a narrative voice that authentically depicts what life is like for a woman struggling to survive in a misogynistic, patriarchal world.
My book reviews are also available at www.tamaraaghajaffar.com
July 16, 2025
This was really beautifully written, but it felt a little disjointed at times. I think this would’ve been a more seamless read if it had followed a more linear timeline. There was a lot of back and forth in time.
October 25, 2025
Well written, although I didn't enjoy reading it. A story about a family, about poverty, about poor decisions and repercussions. We all make poor decisions sometimes. Only poverty removes the "cushion" that might prevent poor decisions from spiraling down into ever more harsh circumstances.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews