Cairo: My City, Our Revolution

by Ahdaf Soueif

Over the past few months I have delivered lectures, presentations and interviews on the Egyptian Revolution. I have had overflowing houses everywhere, been stopped by old ladies in the street and had my hand shaken by numerous taxi drivers and shopkeepers. And all because I'm Egyptian and the glitter of Tahrir is upon me. They wanted me to talk to them, to tell them stories about it, to tell them how, on the 28th of January when we took the Square and The People torched the headquarters of the hated ruling National Democratic Party, The (same) People formed a human chain to protect the Antiquities Museum and demanded an official handover to the military; to tell them how, on Wednesday, February 2nd, as The People defended themselves against the invading thug militias and fought pitched battles at the entrance to the Square in the shadow of the Antiquities Museum, The (same) People at the centre of the square debated political structures and laughed at stand-up comics and distributed sandwiches and water; to tell them of the chants and the poetry and the songs, of how we danced and waved at the F16s that our President flew over us. People everywhere want to make this Revolution their own, and we in Egypt want to share it. Ahdaf Soueif - novelist, commentator, activist - navigates her history of Cairo and her journey through the Revolution that's redrawing its future. Through a map of stories drawn from private history and public record Soueif charts a story of the Revolution that is both intimately hers and publicly Egyptian. Ahdaf Soueif was born and brought up in Cairo. When the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 erupted on January 25th, she, along with thousands of others, called Tahrir Square home for eighteen days. She reported for the world's media and did - like everyone else - whatever she could.

Genres: Nonfiction, Egypt, History, Politics, Middle East, Memoir, Africa

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 19, 2012

About the author

Ahdaf Soueif (Arabic: أهداف سويف) is an Egyptian short story writer, novelist and political and cultural commentator. She was educated in Egypt and England - studied for a PhD in linguistics at the University of Lancaster.

Her novel The Map of Love (1999) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and subsequently translated into 21 languages. Soueif writes primarily in English, but her Arabic-speaking readers say they can hear the Arabic through the English. Along with in-depth and sensitive readings of Egyptian history and politics, Soueif also writes about Palestinians in her fiction and non-fiction. A shorter version of "Under the Gun: A Palestinian Journey" was originally published in The Guardian and then printed in full in Soueif's recent collection of essays, Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground (2004). Soueif has also translated Mourid Barghouti's I Saw Ramallah (with a foreword by Edward Said) from Arabic into English.


In 2007, Soueif was one of more than 100 artists and writers who signed an open letter initiated by Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism and the South West Asian, North African Bay Area Queers (SWANABAQ) and calling on the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival "to honor calls for an international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions, by discontinuing Israeli consulate sponsorship of the LGBT film festival and not cosponsoring events with the Israeli consulate."


In 2008 she initiated the first Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest). Soueif is also a cultural and political commentator for the Guardian newspaper and she has been reporting on the Egyptian revolution. In January 2012 she published Cairo: My City, Our Revolution – a personal account of the first year of the Egyptian revolution

Reviews

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an enlightening and uplifting read. To learn more of what happened in Cairo, in and around Tahrir during the days of revolution in late January, early February 2011 is quite an experience. Here we are not filtered by the Western press or government spokesmen. We hear from an Egyptian writer who was there along with her friends and family.

A major fact I learned was the variety of peoples in the square, people from all corners of Egyptian life, all religious sectors, economic and educational levels. All want an end to a government which had despoiled their land in its own interest while also killing and imprisoning its own citizens.


"You could say that this is normal, healthy: people are
working out what they believe in and stand for -- and they're
not used to working together politically because anyone who
tried to work together politically over the last sixty years
was destroyed. So the revolutionary forces are really doing
what they're meant to do and our society is engaged in a
process that will take time." (p86)


In a section labeled "Interruption", Soueif acknowledges, some month after the initial revolt, that future readers may see results she at the time of writing has not anticipated. She tries to explain the background for the revolution and the difficulties for the future.


Now eight months later, our landscape is more ambiguous,
more confused. I try to describe it and big, dramatic cliches
crowd into my head: the Forces of Darkness. the Battle
against Evil. but cliches can also be true descriptions.
Hosni Mubarak threatened that it was either him or chaos.
Not because that was the natural order of things, but because
if we chose no-him the forces that he represented would
work to create chaos. Mubarak and his family were the
packaging, the casing that held the Forces of Darkness
together, that utilised them, through his National Democratic
Party, his security apparatus, his corrupt government and
the corrupt elite inserted into almost every leadership
in the country. Now the casing's been smashed and the
Darkness is out there, unchannelled, panicked, rampant,
twisting into every nook and cranny as it seeks to wrap
around us again." (p66)


Can there be any doubt why the time after the revolution has been so difficult.

One final image left me so hopeful for the people of Egypt. On Fridays and Sundays in Tahrir there were religious services. Friday's these were started with Muslim prayers and sermons and followed with a Christian Mass. On Sunday the order was reversed. People of both faiths attended both. Contrary to the negative publicity being put out by probable Egyptian government sources, there was mutual respect and brotherhood in the square. (The Islamic Brotherhood was not a participant though members did participate)

Highly recommended for an insider's view of The January Revolt in Egypt.

4 *

[Tinea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know if this book will stand the test of time and become a classic revolutionary text. It is breathless and rushed and full of awe at what has just transpired, and doubt, worry about what came six months later and what will come. It may not provide the historical context a reader who didn't follow Al-Jazeera's live blog minute by minute for 18 days in early 2011 may need. It is powerful to read right now.

There is a revolutionary truth in here that will never be captured by a historian. Soueif is an Egyptian journalist who chose to document as a participant in Tahrir. She wrote this book, reflecting six months later, from the vantage of having seen only parts, of having done her part by walking and standing and contributing some skill or other in connection with others each doing their part. I cried reading the ending of this, as I cried the day Mubarak left, cried for the Egyptian Revolution because it was so beautiful and fragile and is still at this minute a beautiful, fragile thing. Yesterday President Morsi declared new powers for himself and protests responded in the streets. An interlude mid-way through the book's record of 18 revolutionary days brings the reader up to October 2011 when the army has not relinquished power and has taken over extraordinary rendition and torture. Soueif faces this state terror as the last with eyes open, but clearly she is moved by the 18 days of peaceful, just revolution-- if gently sad from its failure to be truly transformative.

I love how Soueif chose to keep Arabic words within the text, instead of translation, devoting lengthy footnotes to unpacking nuanced meanings. I loved her digressions into family history and personal relationships to places in the city. Her descriptions of the action in Tahrir; the glimpses we have of young people enacting decisions and projects and democratic politics; the discovery that every person has an opinion and a role when called upon by circumstance are precious photos of fluid process that is hard to see and to hold.

From one day near the end:
I look back now at the spectacle of us, us the people, in all our variety, picnicking, strolling, camping, chanting, on the street of the Ministries between our Parliament and our Cabinet Office; my aunt and I and a few thousand people outside the railings. It would be dead simple to go in and occupy them both. And it's not fear that holds us back. How can the shabab be afraid after their attempt on the Dakhleyya down the road-- when for three days they surged against that Fortress of Evil facing bullets and gas? Or after Bloody Wednesday, when they defended the Midan against cavalry and Molotovs and snipers and militias? No, we the people were implementing a doctrine of minimum force, minimum destruction. This was a revolution that respected the law, that had at its heart the desire to reclaim the institutions of state, not to destroy them. It was very clear who the enemy was: the Dakhleyya and State Security and the National Democratic Party. Theirs were the buildings the revolution torched. Even the common soldiers of Central Security were spared-- because they were conscripts.

Would we have ended up in a better place if we had been more violent?

Given Libya and Bahrain and Syria, given the new shuhada of Egypt and its own disappeared: what a heavy question.

[for the MENA Lit bookclub]

[Niledaughter]

Arabic :
القاهرة.. مدينتى وثورتنا
http://www.shorouknews.com/columns/vi...

مقتطف من كتاب (القاهرة: مدينتى وثورتنا)
http://www.shorouknews.com/columns/vi...

(القاهرة: مدينتى وثورتنا) .. الأربعاء 2 فبراير 2011
http://www.shorouknews.com/columns/vi...

(القاهرة مدينتى.. وثورتنا) .. الفصل الأخير
http://www.shorouknews.com/columns/vi...


النشر المفصل

1-القاهرة.. مدينتى وثورتنا الجزء الأولــ١٨ يومًا
http://www.shorouknews.com/columns/vi...

2- القاهرة.. مدينتى وثورتنا (٢)
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3- القاهرة: مدينتى وثورتنا (٣)
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4- القاهرة: مدينتى وثورتنا (٤)
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القاهرة: مدينتى وثورتنا (خارج التسلسل)
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5- القاهرة.. مدينتى وثورتنا (٥)
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6- القاهرة: مدينتى وثورتنا (٦)
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7- القاهرة.. مدينتى وثورتنا (٧)
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8- القاهرة: مدينتى وثورتنا (٨)
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9-

10 القاهرة: مدينتى وثورتنا (10)
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11- القاهرة: مدينتى وثورتنا (11)
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12- القاهرة: مدينتى وثورتنا (١٢)
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القاهرة.. مدينتى وثورتنا (١٣)
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القاهرة: مدينتى وثورتنا (١٤)
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القاهرة: مدينتى وثورتنا (١٥)
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القاهرة: مدينتى وثورتنا (١٦)
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القاهرة.. مدينتى وثورتنا (١٧)
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18
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19 - 26
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[Amira · Rating 4 out of 5]

I envy every person who was in Egypt and took part, partially or wholly, in the revolution on the ground. I wish I had been there in person. I was of course in spirit.. worrying, hoping, fearful, angry, optimistic, tweeting, facebooking, emailing... but I wasn't there in person.

And now that I've read this book, I feel the impact of how much I have missed by not being there. But I also feel a sense of overwhelming pride that we, the people, achieved what we achieved in such a short time with the least possible consequences and casualties.

Ahdaf Soueif's book is a refreshing read.. her sense of optimism just brings a ray of light to the revolution. She has not forgotten the martyrs.. how could she? She names them, describes them, talks about them as if she knew them personally.. nor has she overlooked the violence that has happened.. but she gently passes over it all, acknowledging it and showing us how stronger we are because of our losses and because of the atrocities we are confronted with.

Together with the accounts of my friends who were there, and this bigger picture of the events and the details depicting the 18 days of the revolution that Soueif describes, my understanding of the revolution, and of Cairo, the city I grew up in and learnt to love and cherish in many different ways, is revealed to me lovingly and beautifully through phrases and actions of the people that Ahdaf is so skilled at portraying, and through the courage and determination of a people who have taken the choice to be silent no more and to shape a better future for themselves, their families and their children.

I truly enjoyed reading it.

[Carolien · Rating 4 out of 5]

This books provide a very personal telling of the events in Egypt in 2011. The global media footage of the crowds in Tahrir square could not provide the details of the experiences of the protesters and the author's immediate family. It is also a collection of deeply personal memories of Cairo. Nearly a decade later, it appears as if there is still quite a journey left to achieve the expectations of the many brave people who participated in this event.

An article in 2020 with the article on the process post 2011. https://www.ft.com/content/75fd7538-3...

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

An attempt to give a blow-by-blow account of one woman's perspective on the 2011-2012 Arab Spring in Egypt. The book is trying to do a good thing, but it really gets bogged down in details. Unless you already know the overall story pretty well (and frankly, a lot of the twists and turns are already starting to fade from my mind), it is hard to keep track of what is happening.

It's also a very sad book. Not because it was written as a sad book. Most of the chapters are filled with optimism that the revolution will triumph in the end, no matter what obstacles it must face. It's just that reading it now, in the summer of 2014, I know that Ms. Soueif's optimism is misplaced. It's interesting that Soueif falls it a memoir of the city rather than the revolution. Not that I know Cairo as well as she does, but I don't think it is. It is a memoir of a moment, a moment that she hoped would leave a different lasting impression than I think it has.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely stunning and visceral, one of the best and most important books I've ever read. In some ways it reminds me of Quattrochhi's The Beginning of the End, except this goes much deeper.

On 28 January, standing at that momentous crossroads, the Nile behind us, the Arab League building to our left, the old Ministry of Foreign Affairs to our right, seeing nothing up ahead except the gas and smoke and fire that stand between us and our capital, we stand our ground and sing and chant and place our lives, with all trust and confidence, in each other’s hands.

*

Some of us die.

*

…We, the older revolutionaries, have been trying since ‘72 to take Tahrir. They are doing it. They’re going to change the world. We follow them and pledge what’s left of our lives to their effort.

[Abheri - now using storygraph · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is beautiful and wonderful on so many levels it beggars belief. I shook with rage and cried angry tears as events unfolded in Egypt, a country so far from me. The writing and narration is powerful and it's impossible to not be swept up in the events the author describes. The writing made me want to visit every single place described in the book and that's definitely on my bucket list now. I never even had a bucket list before so the book's impact is enormous, as you can see.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

A passionate hearfelt diary of the spring revolution in Egypt. The author provides detailed descriptions of the events of those days giving us an insider view of how things really panned out for the locals, the youth, the mothers, the brothers and sisters beyond all media rhetoric. The smokes and mirrors melt away and the reader is left with the reality of police beatings, political scheming and manipulation by a minority of the majority. Her family roots us in the city and makes us love Cairo and Egyptians even more in their fight for freedom of thinking and a better life for future generations. The aftermath is indeed hard to read. The struggle is very much still an uphill curve.

[Yasmina Ibrahim · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I have ambivalent feelings about this book. There were parts where I absolutely loved it because Soueif captured the emotions of the revolution in a way that made you feel as if you were actually there - I even teared up a few times. However, the structure of the book and the way it was written is not well thought out in my opinion. She starts out by recounting the first few of the 18 days that ended with the ousting of Mubarak, then interrupts this and jumps to events that happened months later that revealed the Egyptian military's hypocrisy, and the ways in which they were working against the revolution. She then goes back to narrating the rest of the 18 days and how they all thought that the military might actually help them protect the revolution. After that she goes back to telling of the events that led to clashes between the army and civilian protestors and all the disastrous events that were the aftermath of Jan 25th. Her jumping back and forth would make anyone unfamiliar with these events very confused because there is no timeline or chronology being outlined. I was able to follow because I knew of most of the events, but if I didn't this book would be very frustrating.

Secondly, it seems that Soueif set out to do two things: narrate her own experience taking part in the Jan 25 revolution and its aftermath and speak about the changes that Cairo has underwent in the span of her lifetime. She mentions in her introduction that she had been trying to write about Cairo for many years prior to 2011, and so perhaps she saw this as an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. However, she devotes most of the book to talking specifically about the revolution and the events that came after and devotes few pages to actually giving a memoir of her experience in the city.

Nonetheless, if you have questions about what happened - and what is currently happening - in Egypt, this book has answers. It is in no way comprehensive, but if you did not follow the events when they were taking place, this might be a good place to start.

[Yasmin · Rating 5 out of 5]

There has been an updated edition of this book that I would very much like to read to get a first hand account of the revolution in Egypt. This book is a first hand witness of the revolution in Egypt, but actually as the author says herself three revolutions, or perhaps three parts to the revolution? However way it is labelled it is the transformation of Egypt. As Norman Bethune once said that you couldn't have a revolution without birthing pains, that it is bloody, messy, cripplingly painful, and it has to be (I have mostly paraphrased him here). This time in Egypt is one of those births. Young people took to the streets, young people lost their lives and they did it all for the next generation as well as themselves and the elders of the country. A baby was born while the father was in prison, he met his father for the first time within those stone walls. Other babies had been born when a relative or loved one was in prison. What is the future of that baby in Egypt? What is Egypt's future with that baby as it grows? How many more birthing pains will it endure? And for the babies that were born that would never know a parent because of this latest birthing pain? The people struggle and stumble but they will not fall, they will endure for their country. This is not patriotism for a country right or wrong, this is love for a country, for hope, for opportunities for all, for a better future not too far away. It is for all that we as human beings want in our lives and for others.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was rapt. This is a first-hand, personal story about Cairo and the Tahrir revolution by Adhad Souief, an Egyptian author of The Map of Love. Souief was born in Egypt and educated in England. Her family is liberal and West-leaning, but she also is very pro Palestine. Such is the complicated political milieu of the Middle East. The book is really a diary of the 18 days of the Tahrir revolution, with an epilogue inserted in the middle. Sourief’s talent as a story writer serves her well and we are not only drawn into the revolution, but also her personal reflections as a Cairenne watching her city transform. She adequately paints the complex mosaic of Cairo’s contemporary political life: Salifists and liberals, feminists and hijabs, students and shop keepers. Although it has the slightly romantic hue of someone who has lived through something so life-changing so as to permanently obliterate all objectivity, she also does not hesitate to show us how difficult the transformation to democracy will be. Egypt’s struggle is yet to come.

[Yasmin Sabry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing book... This book will prove to be of great value many years from now, when the younger generations learn the true history of the revolution through the eyes of an authentic Egyptian lady who was born in a revolutionary family raising revolutionary children and grand children... The story goes on... Hopefully one day they get to stop protesting and enjoy the Egypt they dream of
I love Ahdaf Soueif, this lady managed to mix personal stories with national history in a way that makes the reader feels as if her story was their own

[Shimaa Elsharkawy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazingly hearbreaking..

[Rebecca De Graef · Rating 4 out of 5]

An account of the revolution through the eyes of Ahdaf Soueif.
I appreciate how she intertwines the present with the past she has lived through in Cairo and how her personal memories of her city permeate through her current experience and perception of Cairo.
These personal elements bring the city and the revolution to life and remind us how wonderful, hopeful and exciting the days on Tahrir must have been in 2011.
The contrast with today’s reality is heartbreaking.

[Timothy Dymond · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘Legitimacy comes from Tahrir!’ was an early chant from Egypt’s 2011 Arab Spring revolution, and it spoke directly to the figurative and literal centrality of the public space where the protesters congregated and collectivised - Cairo’s Tahrir Square. The title of Ahdaf Soueif’s book says it all: ‘Cairo: Memoir of a City Transformed’. The transformation is the young people of Cairo gathering together in a public space and becoming the ‘shabab’ (Arabic for youth). Unfortunately many also become the ‘shuhada’ or martyrs for the revolution. If you wanted to look at it dialectically you could see here the quantitative change (gathering of people) becoming large enough to be a qualitative change: the public has taken a public space and created its own liberated zone - the popular axis of the revolution.

Another chant, however, shows the second revolutionary axis - nationalism: ‘the people / the army / one hand’. Early on in the revolution, Soueif describes the widespread view that Egypt is not ‘Greece or Latin America’ i.e. the army is part of the fabric of society and therefore would not fire on ‘the people’. This view turned out to be over-optimistic, however it had some historical precedent as elements of the army did refuse orders to shoot demonstrators in the 1970s and 1980s. It is easy with hindsight to fault the shabab with an excessively rosy view of the military, I remember feeling nervous looking at the TV images of US supplied M1 Abrams tanks rolling down Cairo streets. However you can also credit the Tahrir protestors with the realistic recognition that all successful revolutions need, at the very least, the organs of state power to refuse to shoot the people (and ideally to break off and join them). The chant was an invitation, and as far as the Hosni Mubarak regime was concerned, the military reciprocated. They saw that dictatorship had no viable future - particularly if Mubarak’s son was installed over popular discontent. Of course, once the ‘Supreme Council of the Armed Forces’ (SCAF) becomes de facto president of Egypt - it becomes clear that the shabab and the military cannot be ‘one hand’ for very long.

Soueif has written a real time account of the revolution, taken from her notes and impressions of going to the square and living with the shabab. At its best, the book gives a vivid sense of what it is like to be in a ‘liberated zone’ as a tangible geographic space. Around the world at this time there were various attempts (e.g. Occupy Wall Street) to create these liberated spaces as a fresh foundation for the legitimacy of radical politics. It is a return to an earlier conception of revolution in which all revolts are, essentially, about land: where is your liberated space, who controls it, who has the resources? This idea is open to criticism in that it downplays intersections such as class, race, gender. Soueif mentions worker strikes, and the roles of women, in her account - however it is fair to say that her primary revolutionary ‘agent’ is the shabab: the youth. This is a category that dissolves all other distinctions for her - which on the one hand can make her descriptions of revolutionary processes (why did people gather, what gave them common cause) frustratingly vague. However there is still a key insight here that revolutions are inevitably a young person’s game.

The downside of Soueif’s real time writing approach, is that she jumps back and forth in her chronology - making it difficult to keep track of the timeline of the revolution. The overall tone is sentimental, valorising the shabab and the shuhada - but giving very little space to a prosaic analysis. Of course, that’s not really Soueif’s intention - she wants to create a strong sense of what it is like to be in a revolution. This book is best read in conjunction with a scholarly history of the Arab Spring - the results of which it is arguably still ’too soon to tell’.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just picked up this book from the library non-fiction shelf. It sounded intriguing. It is a beautifully written account of the revolution in Egypt in 2011 thru 2013. Soueif, herself a journalist, is swept up in the events and protests to oust Mubarak and his regime from power. It is eminently readable and personal and hard to put down. She has a unique way of presenting the most frightening and courageous acts so that the reader is brought into the scene but not repelled by it. Not at all graphic or unnecessarily violent. It is all heart and headiness that comes from challenging the present corrupt powers and, in a good measure, being successful. Congratulations to all the shabab and to Ms. Soueif for putting their lives on the line for justice.
As of today, the Egyptians have elected a new president who harkens from the military. Umm...wonder what Ms. Soueif thinks of this new twist?

[Mohamed · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading this book, I decided not to read any more books about the Egyptian Revolution, at least for sometime. Ms. Soueif is a good writer who presented a vivid image of the deterioration that gradually fell on Egypt during the last 30 years. She recorded the turbulent days where young people were finally able to take down a brutal regime, at least temporarily. The book however painfully narrated the aftermath of the revolution and how the traditional forces reasserted themselves while revolutionary forces squabbled and antagonized the general population till they became completely discredited by the general population. The tragedy is Ms. Soueif is still oblivious to the role the people she admired contributed to the failure of the revolution, at least for now.

[Calzean · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book has been hurriedly written by a very busy lady so it lacks some background and coherency around the events in Cairo 2011. However, it gives a lot of reasons into why the people came together for eighteen days. It is a deeply personnel insight of what Ahdaf Soueif witnessed and participated in during the eighteen days of protests which ended in Mubarak's resignation. There is also a poignant section written eight months later on the frustration in the lack of change that had occurred and in the failure of the revolution to have a focused leadership group. Ahdaf Soueif recognises the story of Cairo and Egypt is ongoing and that the reader would know more about the outcomes that follows the events described in this book.

[Jared Della Rocca · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really interesting look from an inside perspective at the tumultuous, exultant, grassroots uprising over eighteen days in Cairo. What was a drawback to the book - the chaotic, dispersive writing - isn't so much a critique of Soueif as it is a reflection of the events she's chronicling. History will provide a clearer narrative, but Soueif gives a live chronicling as events unfolded. While there are some retrospective notes interspersed throughout the book, much of it reflects the overwhelming feeling of a turning tide and ambiguity of what's to come. And all of it pulses with excitement, solidarity, and burgeoning hope that now, finally, change has come.

[Alice · Rating 2 out of 5]

It seems this book was rushed to print so that something could be published about the Egyptian revolution. Most of it is quite repetitive, a listing of what happened at various times during the day. I also thought it was a bad choice to put the "interruption" in the middle - about the author's growing disillusionment with the revolution and the military's handling of the pre-election situation - it makes the last part of the book seem sort of strange and pointless, especially the positive tone of the ending.

[Hager Moharram · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading the book years after the revolution and trying to survive through the ugly cruel reality I would find tears pickling my eyes every now and then. The part that really forced me to write the review is the epilogue that started with Mona's recollection of an event.
Thanks Soueif for confirming to me that the revolution actually happened and it wasn't one beautiful summer dream on a breezeful summer night and what I saw and witnessed in Tahrir Square during those days actually happened and took place

[Sidney Luckett · Rating 3 out of 5]

The closing lines of the Epilogue:

'We made a city square powerful enough to remove a dictator. Now we must re-make a nation to lead others on the road to global equality and justice ....

Inclusive, inventive, open source, modern, peaceful, just, communal, unified and focused. A set of ideals on which to build a national politics.'

A beautiful human story of the Tahrir revolution in which the author participated. In retrospect, hopelessly idealistic or only a 'dream deferred'

[Marcy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a wonderful memoir of a city--a snapshot really, taken at one of its most promising moments. Soueif does a beautiful job capturing the mood of Cairo during the revolution of 2011. While the reality of Cairo, and indeed of Egypt more generally, is rather grim today, her sense of what went wrong and what is still possible leaves readers on a hopeful note.

[Paul Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

You should read this. Soueif states at the outset that she is writing at a moment in time without the hindsight that we, as readers, will have when we read it. How bitter it is to know how sacrifice, commitment and optimism can turn so sour as has been the case in Egypt. The story goes on and who knows how it will resolve itself?

[Elisha · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't make it thru rhis book. I know it was written "in real time" of the events and was hoping for a great insight into these events. This book was so chaotic, hard to follow and just didn't provide enough information to link everything she was talking about. I may try to re read it someday.

[Jbondandrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading Ahdaf Soueif's book Cairo and I learnt about how much Egyptians want change in their country. It seems with every victory another obstacle appears before them. I hope that one day ordinary Egyptians will know peace and stability in their country.

[Abla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enlightening! Sincere, authentic... Bottom line, it's a must if you want to grasp a tangible understanding of the Egyptian revolution. It's a journey that brought tears to my eyes! (I am not the type)

[Mennatallah Yusuf · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to know what really happened during the 18 days of the Egyptian revolution and how it was stolen from its people, then I do recommend this book to you by the renowned Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif.

[Zheng · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good start, but somewhat complex. It was still a good read, but for someone who was looking for history, people's motivation, politics, and religious, It was a bit biased and too complex in my opinion. Still a good read though.