That smell. Notes from prison. Sonollah Ibrahim. Ed. and translated by Robyn Creswell

✍ Scribed by Sonallah Ibrahim

• Book ID: 100242783
• Publisher: New Directions
• Year: 2013
• Tongue: en-US
• Weight: 83 KB
• Category: Fiction
• ISBN: 0811220621

✦ Synopsis

That Smell is Sonallah Ibrahim's modernist masterpiece and one of the most influential Arabic novels. Composed in the wake of a five-year prison sentence, the semi-autobiographical story follows a recently released political prisoner as he wanders through Cairo, adrift in his native city.

That Smell is Sonallah Ibrahim's modernist masterpiece and one of the most influential novels written in Arabic since WWII. Composed after a five-year term in prison, the semi-autobiographical story follows a recently released political prisoner as he wanders through Cairo, adrift in his native city. Living under house arrest, he tries to write of his tortuous experience, but instead smokes, spies on the neighbors, visits old lovers, and marvels at Egypt's new consumer culture. Published in 1966, That Smell was immediately banned and the print-run confiscated. The original, uncensored version did not appear in Egypt for another twenty years.

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