The Yacoubian Building

In The Yacoubian Building, Alaa Al Aswany creates a memorable cast of characters who, taken as a whole, may represent the range of groups or classes in contemporary Egypt. In addition, by using a single structure as the physical locus in which many of these characters initially meet or ultimately live and work, the author has centered his story in a manner that depicts changes taking place both physically and socially in Egypt over time. This essay will first examine a small number of characters in the novel as they appeal to the reader and relate to Egyptian culture. Second, it will focus on the actual role played by the building itself in creating a meeting place where new loves and old animosities flourish.

One of the most compelling characters in the novel is Busayna, described by Al Aswany (vii) as "the oldest daughter of a poor family that lives in the shacks on the roof of the Yacoubian building." This young woman is intelligent, educated, and beautiful. Required to work after completing a commercial diploma, she gradually comes to the realization that as a woman she is vulnerable to the advances of her male employers. Indeed, virtually every man for whom she works sexually harasses her, "The boss would keep at it til the business reached its logical conclusion, that final scene that she hated and feared and that always came about when the older man would insist on kissing her by force in the empty office or press up against her or start opening his fly to

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in 'the science of women' as he calls it, he has strange and eccentric theories" (6). He is a lover of women who nevertheless ultimately elects to marry so that he can have the "normal" life that other Arab men appear to want. He is a contemporary and somewhat modern man who is clearly differentiated from Taha in that the former is in love with life and the latter is in love with the idea of death in the revolutionary cause. Each of these characters and others who appear in the story represent the multifaceted nature of Egyptian society. Taha, the revolutionary, Zaki, the lover of women, and Busayna and Radwa, the women who recognize their dependence upon men are all examples of a culture that is experiencing enormous conflict. From a Western perspective, Busayna and Zaki are more appealing because they do not present the fundamentalist, radical aspects of political Islam that are found in the characters of Taha, Sheikh Bilal, and Radwa. The second issue of significance herein is the question of why Al Aswany chose to structure his novel around a specific building that was constructed in 1934 by an Armenian millionaire, who created "ten lofty stories in the high classical European style, the balconies decorated with G

Category: Literature - T

The Yacoubian Building - Book Review