A Dog with No Tail is a modern Egyptian novel about a world of disillusion, a world of young villagers craving to find a place for themselves in the capital. It is the story of a Bedouin from the village of Abu Tahoun in Fayoum, where the inhabitants are a mixture of Bedouin and peasants. The narrator, Hamdi Abu Golayyel, which happens to be the name of the author himself, is an aspiring novelist who reminisces about the days of his adolescence and early manhood. In school and in the Cairo quarters of Shubra and Ain Shams where he worked in construction, memories flow in a disorderly manner. As the narrator says at the outset, while smoking a hash-stuffed cigarette, "At times like these I picture my life as files stored away in my head." The novel entitled in Arabic Al-Fa'il (The Labourer), which was given the title A Dog with No Tail in its English translation, depicts the disrupted life of the Hamdi as a senior school boy and later a student at a little-known institute in Beni Suef attended by the ‘poor and lazy'. His vivid memories of the time he spent in jail after being caught in a student demonstration, in which he had accidentally got caught up, and of his hard-working days with Maalem Matar and his crew on building sites are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. They all add up at the end of the book to give a full, interlocking picture of his life. The novel, awarded the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2008, reveals the narrator's quest for meaning and purpose in life. The book is at times lewd, as the narrator describes having sex with strange women and relatives. Theses stories are told in parallel to the construction process with one brick being cemented to another. Hamdi, quite aware that he belongs to society's marginalised, proudly boasts of his literary talents whenever he makes a new friend. He gives himself the airs and graces of an intellectual to rid himself of the stain of manual labour. He acquires a certain distinction among labourers of the lowest order or back home in his community, where the humble folk are lacking in enlightenment. Hamdi's stories loop and repeat, while he digresses along the way, referring to personal incidents and national events, before getting back to the point. The narrative refers to many things that have happened here in the past few decades. He pinpoints the moral duality that indeed prevails in society, as embodied in the attitude of his friend, the Doctor, who, after sleeping with a whore, heads to the mosque for prayers. Hamdi Golayyel, having been born in Fayoum, writes authentically of the people in this part of the country, that stands on the threshold of Upper Egypt. However, for the foreign reader who may not be acquainted with the particulars of Egyptian society, the translated version might include words and ideas that seem somewhat meaningless. The glossary at the end of the book does help defuse some of the ambiguity, but still some things are quite perplexing for the Western reader. Robin Moger, who has translated this novel, studied Egyptology and Arabic at Oxford. He lived in Cairo for six years during which time he worked as a journalist for the Cairo Times. The Naguib Mahfouz Medal was established by the American University in Cairo 13 years ago to promote modern Arabic literature. It is given every year on December 11, on the birthday of Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfuz, to a book that has not yet been translated into English. The translated copy of Al-Fa'il appeared a year after the author won his award. A Dog with No Tail By Hamdi Abu Golayyel The American University in Cairo Press 152 pages LE80
