عائشة

by Ahdaf Soueif, Ahdaf Soueif

عائشة هو الكتاب الأول لسويف، والقول بأنه كتاب واعد لهو أمر مجاف للحقيقة، فهو كتاب منجز بشكل راقٍ. عائشة هي شاهد آخر على حقيقة أن بعض أكثر النثر الروائي البريطاني وثوقية يكتب على يد أشخاص من ذوي الثقافات المختلطة

Genres: Fiction, Egypt, Contemporary, Middle East

240 pages

First published January 1, 1983

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

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interconnected stories about Egyptians in the 60s - 80s, lives split between Egypt and England, high and low class society. Is each Aisha in the book the same? Hard to say. Works both as individual stories and a kind of refracted, fragmented whole. Supple, expressive prose, vivid in its pictures of people, places and states of mind.

[Aisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes a random second hand book shop pick turns out to be a great one!
Through eight disconnected stories from Aisha's life, we discover the girl she was, the woman she became and piece together the life she lived. The stories are hard hitting and seamlessly address the subjects of identity, envy, patriarchy and desire.
The downside for me, was that the stories are quite disconnected. You could read them almost as stand alone shorts.

[The Contented · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first read this when I was ten or eleven, borrowing it from the British council library. I read it again - all these years later- boosting my January total in a weekend.

Ahdaf Soueif is amazingly talented as a writer. She goes where few others do.

But I remember being disturbed by the subject matter of the stories as a child, and no less disturbed by the subject matter now.

Some of the same characters seem to reappear in her later books.

I would love to re-read ‘In the Eye of the Sun’

I dipped into ‘Sandpiper’ a few summers ago - as it was on my nephew’s O level syllabus.

I haven’t touched ‘Map of love’, ‘Mezzaterra’ or ‘I think of you’ since I first read them years ago.

Of course my most recent read was ‘Cairo, my city. Our revolution’ if I got the title right.

[Zainab Magdy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the way she wrote it, the form. Very new

[Suncan Stone]

Smooth. A fast read, with an extremely smooth style but I have a feeling it will not be memorable. But, as it is summer, there are many worse beach books I could think of.

[Laetitia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read but it feels rather stereotypical. It invites the reader to make a moral judgment where it may not be appropriate.

I give it 4* because I enjoyed reading it a lot.

[Sue Corbett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short stories, some tentatively linked but good quality writing and stories over all

[Socrate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Îmi amintesc vremuri fericite, cu pete de soare. Ferestre franţuzeşti dau către o grădină înflorită. De la poarta grădinii şi până la geamurile deschise se întinde o potecă pavată, în pantă, iar în capătul ei stă o tricicletă de un albastru scânteietor, pregătită pentru alunecarea ameţitoare şi voioasă în josul potecii. Trebuia doar să ajungi în vârful pantei. Ridicai picioarele şi zvârrr - o porneai la vale. Şi să te opreşti prompt, căci altfel ajungeai în camera de zi. Aceasta are fotolii imense, decolorate, covoraşe multicolore şi multe, multe cărţi. Pereţii sunt tapetaţi cu cărţi. Unele au poze, pe altele ai voie să le iei şi să le priveşti, pe celelalte nu ţi se îngăduie să le atingi. Toate cărţile trebuie tratate cu mult respect, niciodată rupte, îndoite, mâzgălite sau aşezate cu faţa în jos. Nici măcar frunzărite în timp ce mănânci, ca nu cumva să scapi mâncare pe ele. In mijlocul cărţilor stau cei mari. Sunt fermecători. Beau ceai, fumează, râd şi vorbesc tot timpul. Femeile - frumoase, cu buze şi unghii pictate în roşu. Bărbaţii - înalţi şi chipeşi. Toţi fac lucruri inteligente. Scriu cărţi, compun muzică şi pictează. Tablourile lor strălucesc pe pereţii din apartamentul nostru. Privind în urmă, văd o mare de lumină şi o copilă în mijloc. Poartă o rochie albastră, cu buline albe si un furou din dantelă albă. Se ţine de fusta mamei. îşi suge tacticos degetul, cuprinsă de un acces subit de timiditate în dosul uşii camerei de zi .

[Gail Kennon · Rating 3 out of 5]

i enjoyed reading this both for setting, characters and language...and i look forward to reading other works by the author but i found myself totally confused by the final section..if this is a novel it lost me in aisha's story..if it's short stories then i get it but why the same name for two different main characters. vivid prose.

[Azu Rikka · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5☆
I like the writing, that the different short stories are not in chronological order and the different POV's. I got a good look into a woman's life in Cairo during the 1960-70's. Various cultural events and processes were colourfully described.

[Doha Hassan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read it with ayesha ♥️

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tough to rate this one. It was a 4 until the end. I wish I could give it a 3.5.