A lively and original story of modern Egypt told through the lives of its first generation of women celebrities.
A vibrant history of Cairo’s women-dominated cultural landscape between the wars.
As Cormack shows in this singular work of scholarship, Cairo in the 1920s and ’30s was a unique milieu in which women could excel as proudly feminist artists and entrepreneurs. Moving chronologically, the author, who holds a doctorate in Egyptian theater and has written extensively about Arabic culture, drills down on the neighborhood of Ezbekiyya, especially along Emad al-Din Street, where bars, restaurants, theaters, and other entertainment establishments flourished from roughly the turn of the 20th century to the 1950s. This is where Europeans—many of whom descended from 19th-century colonizers—mingled with the locals. During the 1919 revolution, “an example of unprecedented national unity,” women played prominent roles. While women artists and performers endured numerous unfair stereotypes, the author ably shows their significance to the cultural scene. Via a dozen or so minibiographies of these fascinating, talented women, many of whom rose from humble beginnings—as well as scores of contextualizing photos—Cormack makes the convincing case that “at its core, this was a group of women demanding to be heard as they asserted their wishes, claimed their rights, and made space for themselves.” Shining examples abound: Munira al-Mahdiya, thriving in the new genre called “taqtuqa” (a light, popular song), was “the first women in Egypt to lead a theatrical troupe.” Rose al-Youssef, “one of the most famous actresses in Egypt,” started a magazine that served as an important source of information on Cairo’s nightlife. Fatima Rushdi became known as the “Sarah Bernhardt of the East.” Oum Kalthoum “is the singer now remembered worldwide as the most popular icon in the history of Arabic music.” Cormack also examines Aziza Amir’s Layla (1927), which was considered “the first Egyptian film.”
A lively and original story of modern Egypt told through the lives of its first generation of women celebrities.Pub Date: March 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-393-54113-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.
A popular novelist turns his hand to historical writing, focusing on what shipwrecks can tell us.
There’s something inherently romantic about shipwrecks: the mystery, the drama of disaster, the prospect of lost treasure. Gibbins, who’s found acclaim as an author of historical fiction, has long been fascinated with them, and his expertise in both archaeology and diving provides a tone of solid authority to his latest book. The author has personally dived on more than half the wrecks discussed in the book; for the other cases, he draws on historical records and accounts. “Wrecks offer special access to history at all…levels,” he writes. “Unlike many archaeological sites, a wreck represents a single event in which most of the objects were in use at that time and can often be closely dated. What might seem hazy in other evidence can be sharply defined, pointing the way to fresh insights.” Gibbins covers a wide variety of cases, including wrecks dating from classical times; a ship torpedoed during World War II; a Viking longship; a ship of Arab origin that foundered in Indonesian waters in the ninth century; the Mary Rose, the flagship of the navy of Henry VIII; and an Arctic exploring vessel, the Terror (for more on that ship, read Paul Watson’s Ice Ghost). Underwater excavation often produces valuable artifacts, but Gibbins is equally interested in the material that reveals the society of the time. He does an excellent job of placing each wreck within a broader context, as well as examining the human elements of the story. The result is a book that will appeal to readers with an interest in maritime history and who would enjoy a different, and enlightening, perspective.
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781250325372
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
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