The Measure of Distance

They went to Cairo, leaving behind the adobe houses built along the edge of the Nile and the villagers who all knew each other and who had lived on this land for more centuries than their names could count. Behind them, they left the imprint of their footsteps for others who might follow.

This family saga begins when Salim, the eldest of three brothers, moves to Cairo at the start of the twentieth century with dreams of opening his own bakery. His decision to leave his ancestral village of Kom Ombo despite his parents’ objections reverberates across generations, kicking off a series of migrations that shape the lives of his family and their descendants throughout the decades that follow. These migrations only intensify after the revolution of 1952—with Misha, Salim’s eldest grandchild, being the first to flee to “Amreeka,” his annual phone calls home becoming briefer and briefer with each passing year.

Culminating with the 2011 protests in Tahrir Square, Pauline Kaldas’s The Measure of Distance is a detailed portrait of immigration against the backdrop of an Egypt in constant flux and an America that is always falling short of the fantasy. Alternating between tales of those who migrate and those who stay, this expansive novel follows its characters as they determine the course of their lives, often choosing one uncertainty over another as they migrate to new lands or plant their roots more firmly in their homeland.