Cairo: City of Sand

by Maria Golia

Cairo is a 1,400-year-old metropolis whose streets are inscribed with sagas, a place where the pressures of life test people's equanimity to the very limit. Virtually surrounded by desert, sixteen million Cairenes cling to the Nile and each other, proximities that color and shape lives. Packed with incident and anecdote Cairo: City of Sand describes the city's given circumstances and people's attitudes of response. Apart from a brisk historical...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1861891873
• ISBN13: 9781861891877
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Read this book!

I am a very fussy reader. I ordered several books about Egyptian history in preparation for a trip to Cairo. I made it about half way through Amitav Gosh's In an Antique Land with interested starts and long lapses between readings until I gave up. I looked through Traveling Through Egypt from 450 BC to the Twentieth Century, an interesting collection of short excerpts of travel writing across gender, time and culture; however the print was too small and the excerpts too choppy to really grab me and pull me in. I was desperate to find a book which would capture a sense of Cairo as a place. I was saved by Maria Golia and her exquisitely written book Cairo: City of Sand. From the first paragraph which describes an apocalyptic scene which turns out to be a sandstorm to the last paragraph which praises the enduring quality of all great cities, especially Cairo. Reading along with Golia allows one to peer into corners of the city known only to native Cairenes from a women's day at a spa, to ordering a MacFalafel at an Egyptian MacDonalds, to attempting to cross a busy street in deafening traffic so close that it brushes one's clothing as it passes, to rooftop gardens and livestock pens, and to a wedding celebration. Through Golia's pen one can hear the cacophony of Cairo, smell the myriad aromas of a host of ethic cuisines, see the dingy squatters settlement and the Mamluk mosque, and feel the scorching blast of a sandstorm. The book is organized in an interesting way beginning with a chapter called "Vanishing Point" which explores daily life in Cairo by looking at diminishing resources such as housing and water as well as growth in population and pollution. The next chapter, "Artifice and Edifice," examines Cairene's history through buildings from its days as a tent encampment through the modern age and its satellite communities. The chapter titled "Guests" explores Cairo's relationship with its visitors from Napoleonic French to Saudi princes who behave badly and the impact of these guests on Cairene culture. The love of language and relationship building is featured in "Listening" and "Ensemble" probes the mazag - the cultural melange that is Cairo. The treasure of intimate glimpses into this city of 17 million is only surpassed by Golia's gift of language. Golia manages to capture the complexities of Cairo through the juxtaposition of images: "Bats gorge on Nile mosquitoes, which are languorous and menacing, an airbourne version of the Portuguese men o'war" (43). She uses metaphors to capture the reader's attention and to create humor: "Blackouts are lapses in the municipal attention span" ( 39). Using vivid imagery and lyrical language Golia brings Cairo alive. I must say that prior to reading this book, my feelings about going to Cairo were an blend of 80% anxiety with 20% excited anticipation. Now that I have vicariously been to Cairo, I now feel mostly excited anticipation.

Wonderful, informative overview of Cairo

This is a lovely and highly informative book. Maria Golia's prose is very readable and equally delightful, her knowledge of Cairo, its people and its history is comprehensive. She loves the city. She doesn't patronize it. Minor corrections, to an otherwise very accurate book, are on Page 35, the name of the Egyptian actor Adel IMAM is given as Adel IMAN, twice. Page 85, the words for 'cemeteries' (plural) and 'dust' (single) in colloquial Egyptian dialect are 'TOE-rub' (the stress on the first syllable) and 'tor-AAb' (the stress is on the second), respectively. It's tempting to argue that they derive from the same three-letter semetic root, but as they stand, they are pronounced differently. Finally, I want to point out that there is a number of short "Letters from Cairo" (published in 'The New Internationalist') by, and an NPR interview (from early 2003) with M Golia available on the web. All highly recommended.

Wonderful book

I learned more from reading this book, over a recent visit, than from living in Cairo for five years and then visiting over a period of twenty. While Max Rodenbeck and others have written decent histories of the city, this is a truly amazing work -- both history and remarkably detailed and with rich philosophical insights not only about the thinking of latter day Cairenes but even about the motivations of the Western tourists who visit Egypt. Golia's writing is funny, her style sweeping, and her conclusions inevitably sensible. Even the photos are good. Buy this book!

Reflects Cairo's Magnificent Complexity

If you know Cairo at all, whether glancingly or in depth, you will be grateful for the richness and detail of Maria Golia's book. No other work on the city captures so much of its unimaginably crowded present. Its past is skillfully woven in, but as Golia notes in her introduction, others have written about Cairo's past. Few outsiders can report so well on the day to day life of this incomprehensibly vast city. True, it's not a tourist's guide, but anyone who loves cities and their history will find this a rewarding text.

Good Introduction to the psyche of Cairenes

I grow up in Cairo. I was suprised how the author learned all of that information that she put in the book. The book provides information that one cannot know unless he/she lives long enough with the Cairenes. The book is very interesting. It descibes many aspects of social life in Cairo. The book discusses details about events, such as marriage, Islam, dating, etc. An early, interesting chapter discusses a brief introduction to the history of Cairo. I think that this book is for a reader who wanna know some information about the behavior and beliefs of Cairnes. The book is easy-to-read and non-academic. This book may not be very informative for someone who just get information about traveling in Cairo.