Egyptian Made by Leslie T. Chang

EGYPTIAN MADE by Leslie T. Chang is an intriguing look at “Women, Work, and the Promise of Liberation.” Chang, an award-winning author, contrasts the stories of female factory workers in Egypt with those of the women she interviewed in China for her previous text, Factory Girls. The patterns that appeared as a result of cultural differences (e.g., roughly one-third of women are illiterate and it is estimated that less than one fourth of women in Egypt work outside the home) were eye-opening. Chang argues that globalization has actually had a negative impact on women working in Egypt where pressures from families and husbands in an increasingly conservative society are limiting opportunities for women. She profiles three women in depth (Rania, a new factory supervisor working to escape an unhappy marriage; Doaa, who wants to become a social worker after her divorce; and Riham who wants to run her own clothing factory). Chang is living in Colorado now and I sincerely hope she is working on her next study. Library Journal compared this book to Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed which was a part of the high school curriculum for years. Readers may want to pair the very informative EGYPTIAN MADE with Getting Me Cheap or other recent texts on workers’ rights or with any of several books about global forces and the Middle East specifically. 

Picture in the Sand by Peter Blauner

PICTURE IN THE SAND by Peter Blauner is an intriguing work of historical fiction. The novel alternates between 1954 Egypt and present day. The majority of the story is told by Ali Hassan, grandfather to Alex (call me Abu Suror) who has been radicalized and has left the States to be with his brothers in arms. Ali Hassan establishes tenuous contact with Alex via email and begins to relate his own life story: infatuation with films and a young wanna-be starlet, production assistant on The Ten Commandments movie, and involvement in religious and political dissent in Egypt. Featuring well-known people like Cecil B. DeMille and Gamal Abdel Nasser, Blauner provides an engrossing look at inflated egos, terrorist plots, and power struggles in Egypt from a time when, according to Blauner, “many historians say the rise of radical Islam, al-Qaeda and ISIS began.” Although sometimes violent (readers are warned early on that a main character loses an eye), this is a suspenseful thriller combined with an excellent coming of age story. Ali Hassan writes to his grandson, “It’s painful and deeply unsettling how much I recognize of myself in you. …. sometimes I think the old trying to talk to the young is like the dead talking to the living.” Blauner is an Edgar Award winning author and his publishers describe his latest novel as “the culmination of two decades of writing and research that took him from Brooklyn to Cairo a half-dozen times.” Hard work is evident: PICTURE IN THE SAND received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and prolific writer Stephen King said, "On rare occasions I read a book that reminds me of why I fell in love with storytelling in the first place. This is such a book."