After Coffee

Egypt is a grand museum from farthest north to the deepest south, yet we are so rich that we hardly notice our wealth.

Medhat is an orphaned boy who grows up shuttling between various farming families in the beautiful province of Sharkia, east of the Nile Delta. What was intended to be a brief visit for the five-year-old to Ismailia, a beautiful and cosmopolitan city in the Suez Canal zone, ends up being the beginning of a nomadic life no one could have imagined. Medhats journey takes him across the many landmarks of Egypt and beyond, all the way to Vienna where he discovers that his feelings of displacement still haunt him to the core. In a narrative that interweaves aspects of Egyptian folklore, epic prose, and classical literature, the author skillfully presents the conflict between the man in exile who reflects longingly on his history and origins, and the village boy who belonged nowhere.