In his new book Shakhsiyat Leha el-Agab (Curiosity-Arousing Characters), veteran Egyptian journalist Salah Eissa has done biographies of 50 famous Egyptians. The six-chapter book contains the lives of many people, who caught the nation's imagination in the 20th century. The author also appears to be impressed by the fictional characters created by the late legendary novelist and Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz. Eissa, who was a leftist in the 1960s before changing his political leanings, pays tribute to his old comrades by briefly depicting them and their contribution to the socialist and communist struggle here. Keen to pre-empt charges of political bias or prejudice, the author also depicts clergymen and their role in the national struggle. Eissa's brilliant style of writing and his masterful control of his expressions really bring his subjects to life. Descendants of the army officers, who launched the 1952 Revolution which ousted the monarch in Egypt, will be disappointed if they're looking for their fathers and grandpas' scandalous stories about the late King Farouk, who was forced to abdicate and spend the rest of his life in exile in Italy. The eyewitnesses in Eissa's book rehabilitate King Farouk, who is said to have had a deep sense of belonging to Egypt and his people. The King's defiance of the British government and his steely determination to liberate Palestine from the Israeli occupation cost him his throne at the end of the day. Schoolchildren and teachers of Egypt's modern history will surely suspect their textbooks if they read Shaksiyat Leha el-Agab, which says that the disgraceful stories about the King and his family were ‘sheer lies'. More astonishing is the fact that the book alleges that the Free Officers, led by late President Gamal Abdel-Nasser (1954 ��" 1970), had a hotline with Washington when they launched the Revolution. In his book, which is likely to prove controversial in literary and cultural circles, Eissa sides with those who disapproved of late President Anwar Sadat, arguing that his decisions were largely influenced by a few confidants, led by the late Osman Ahmed Osman, founder of Arab Contractors, the giant building company. It is also said that the close relationship between Sadat and Osman was what prompted the late President to appoint his friend as Minister of Housing at the time. Egypt's Celebrated journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal gets a mention next to the late man-of-letters Taha Hussein, the Doyen of Arab Literature. Meanwhile, the late head of Egyptian Intelligence Service, Salah Nasser, is remembered next to his chief victims: the two late influential leaders of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan el-Banna and Ma'moun el-Hodibi. But it seems that the author deliberately refuses to let the reader indulge his curiosity about these controversial characters. One shortcoming of Eissa's book is that it deals with major events in Egypt's modern history in a sentimental and subjective way.
