Chicago

The author of the highly acclaimed The Yacoubian Building returns with astory of love sex friendship hatred and ambition set in <strong>Chicago</strong> with ac... » 

The author of the highly acclaimed The Yacoubian Building returns with astory of love sex friendship hatred and ambition set in Chicago with acast of American and Arab characters achingly human in their desires and needs.Egyptian and American lives collide on a college campus in post911Chicago and crises of identity abound in this extraordinary and eagerlyanticipated new novel from Alaa Al Aswany. Among the players are a sixtiesstyle antiestablishment professor whose relationship with a younger AfricanAmerican woman becomes a moving target for intolerance a veiled PhD candidatewhose belief in the principles of her traditional upbringing is shaken by herexposure to American society an emigre whose fervent desire to embrace hisAmerican identity is tested when he is faced with the issue of his daughtershonor an Egyptian informant who spouts religious doctrines while hankeringafter money and power and a dissident student poet who comes to America tofinance his literary aspirations but whose experience in Chicago turns out tobe more than he bargained for. Populated by a cast of intriguing truetolife characters Chicago offers an illuminating portrait of Americaa complex often contradictory land in which triumph and failure opportunityand oppression licentiousness and tender love small dramas and big dreamscoexist. Beautifully rendered Chicago is a powerfully engrossing novel ofculture and individuality from one of the most original voices in contemporaryworld literature. «