Corruption and class divisions are compellingly captured in Alaa al-Aswany’s fiction, which includes his bestseller The Yacoubian Building. His evocative new novel, translated from Arabic by Russell Harris, explores the stratified society of late 1940s Cairo through a family’s fickle fortunes. At the Automobile Club – a microcosm of society – broiling tension seethes between aristocrats and servants like oil through the novel’s faulty engine.
The novel splutters to a start through alternative, aborted beginnings, including a metafictional section: “The novel is really rather good, but it is lacking a few things,” the character Kamel tells the author, advice that rings true. Although the novel faithfully reflects characters’ complex thoughts and feelings, it lacks the narrative momentum of Aswany’s finest fiction. The haphazard story stalls and stutters, impeded by the clunky translation.
Nevertheless, many moving scenes powerfully portray the “festering wound” of injustice, and characters clinging to their dignity as their exploitative masters take them for a ride.
The Automobile Club of Egypt is published by Canongate (£14.99). Click here to order it for £11.99
