The House of the Coptic Woman

“The House of the Coptic Woman is intelligent, complex and rich.”—Arab News

“A provocative story of religious strife, justice, and tragedy. . . with a tinge of macabre humor. . . unnerving, and courageous.”—The New Arab

“People's houses mysteriously burn, lands change hands and old grudges are never settled. . . . This can be seen as a disquieting novel. It is primarily a portrait of how hard it can be to be human in the midst of other human beings who don't know how to live and let live.”—Daily Kos

"These are credible characters and they really ground the story of upheaval and conflict, giving it heft and poignancy, elegantly told, slowly building on the passion behind the story."—Crime Time FM

“[An] intricate legal drama. Two disparate narrators—a public prosecutor and a brutalized runaway woman—take turns relating the events in Upper Egypt, where religion-driven politics engender antagonism and violence. . . . . El-Ashmawi's fiction proves to be a sobering exposé of the multilayered abuses of ominous power.”—Shelf Awareness

"Captivating yet painful, this story unfolds like a beautiful mosaic around the entrance of an abandoned palace.”—Ibrahim Abdel Meguid, author of Clouds Over Alexandria

“This masterpiece will remain one of the best Arabic novels of the past fifty years and it shall live for another fifty years.”—Amad

“This excellent book shows incredible courage . . . fast-paced and very realistic. The novel is a cry against injustice.”—Shorouk

“Ashraf El-Ashmawi breaks down the three deep-seated taboos in Arab writing: religion, sex, and politics.”—Reuters (Arabic edition)

"Ashmawi drills deep into the soul of Egypt. Reminiscent of Alaa Al Aswany's The Yacoubian Building, The House of the Coptic Woman uncovers a complex web of religious conflict, abuse of power, and competition over land in the crammed Nile Valley."—Magdi Abdelhadi, formerly of the BBC

"An allegorical tale of religious strife. . . . Much of the story can be read as a thinly veiled critique of the last years of the Mubarak regime, marked by sectarian violence and official corruption."—Kirkus Reviews

“Full of pain, tears, and blood, as well as the bitterness of broken dreams, this book fires a warning shot, drawing our attention to the absence of justice, law, and freedom.”—al-Ahram

“[A] creative testimony to one of the darkest, most bitter chapters in modern history.”—al-Masry al-Youm

PRAISE FOR EL-ASHMAWI'S PREVIOUS NOVEL, THE LADY OF ZAMALEK:

"A grand family drama set in a society at once strange and familiar, rife with surprise revelations that keep the reader fully engaged. . . .It deserves to be a bestseller."—Washington Independent Review of Books

"There's something very compelling about opening a book to read about a place you've never visited before, from the eyes of an author who knows it well." —LitReactor

"Set in the confines of one toxic family as its members, over decades, perpetually attempt to outmaneuver one another, the narrative creates a sense of vicious hopelessness. In the family, as, it’s implied, the country around them, this cycle swallows all; even acts of extreme insurrection feed back into a negative cycle."—LitHub

"The sweep of Egyptian history and the portrait of class, social norms, and values are fascinating."—Historical Novels Review

"A brilliantly spun tale. . . playing with politics and powerful people. El-Ashmawi paints a story where money comes and goes, power changes hands, and where both can disappear in an instant."—Arab News

"A bold attempt to reimagine not only the transformations of the Zamalek district of Cairo, but also those of the Egyptian nation itself."—al-Dostoor

"Ashraf El-Ashmawy holds a scalpel to dissect the classes of Egyptian society over more than half a century.” —al-Youm al-Sabe'