Now's your chance to meet some of your favorite Egyptian authors. The American University in Cairo Press is hosting a number of book signing sessions at their Naguib Mahfouz Pavilion at the Cairo International Book Fair. Friday, January 26 Yusuf Abu Rayya: This author was awarded last year's Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature by the American University in Cairo Press for his novel "Wedding Night. At the awards ceremony Samia Mehrez, one of the judges, described his work as "the rural counterpart to Mahfouz's critical dissection of the urban world. Abu Rayya's talent comes in creating a web of characters that bring the small, sleepy town in the Delta to life. Miral El-Tahawy: Her most notable novel, "Blue Aubergine, won critical acclaim. It tells the story of a young Egyptian woman, born in 1967, growing up in the wake of Egypt's defeat of that year, and maturing into womanhood against the social and political upheavals Egypt experienced during the final decades of the twentieth century. Physically and emotionally scarred by her parents and the events of her childhood, and incapable of relating to men, Nada, the Blue Aubergine , fumbles through a series of dark and unsettling adventures, resorting first to full Islamic dress with niqab and gloves and then throwing it all off for the flowing hair and tight clothes of an emancipated young graduate student, in an ever more desperate and ultimately failed search for tenderness and affection. Saturday, January 27 Galal Amin: A professor of economics at the American University in Cairo, he is the author of "Whatever Happened to the Egyptians? and "Whatever Else Happened to the Egyptians? which tackle the trials of a society that is growing so quickly, when the habitable and cultivable land of the country is strictly limited. His latest publication, "The Illusion of Progress in the Arab World, deconstructs - in his own inimitable style - the language and underlying assumptions with which the West habitually assails Arab countries and politics. He applies his sharp wit and powers of observation to notions of freedom, democracy, human rights, terrorism (of course), and more, all of which fare the worse for falling under his gaze. Buthaina Al Nasiri: Born in Iraq in 1947, she graduated from the College of Arts of the University of Baghdad and has lived in Cairo since 1979, where she runs a publishing house that specializes in the works of Iraqi writers under UN sanctions. "Final Night, a collection of her stories translated into English, focus on love and death. Despite her distance from her homeland, much of her material derives from it and many of the stories in this collection reflect her deeply felt nostalgia for Iraq. In contrast to many contemporary female writers, she confesses to being less interested in the position of women in society than in that of people in general and the sufferings they experience between birth and the end of life. Nonetheless, some of her best stories depict the many-colored relationships that exist between the sexes. All signing are scheduled to take place between 1-3 pm.
