Ibrahim Abdel Meguid


Ibrahim Abdel Meguid is an Egyptian novelist and author. His best-known works form the "Alexandria Trilogy": No One Sleeps in Alexandria, Birds of Amber, and Clouds Over Alexandria. These have been translated into English and French. Some of his works have also been adapted for films and movies.

Early life and education

Ibrahim Abdel Meguid was born in Alexandria. He studied philosophy at Alexandria University. He obtained his BA in 1973 and moved to Cairo in 1975.

Literary Themes

Literary critics have drawn thematic comparisons between Abdel Meguid's work The Other Place and T.S. Eliot's 1922 poem The Waste Land.
His book, Birds of Amber evokes Alexandria's cosmopolitanism with a sense of nostalgia combined with a desire for freedom from western colonial influence and for a kind of Arab cultural inclusiveness that could accommodate a mixture of foreign cultures.
In No One Sleeps in Alexandria, he details the struggles of the inhabitants during World War II and reimagines Egypt through the “trauma of modernization”.

Works

  • المسافات . Distant Train, translated by Hosam M. Aboul-Ela
  • بيت الياسمين . The House of Jasmine, trans. Noha Radwan
  • البلدة الأخرى . The Other Place, trans. Farouk Abdel Wahab
  • لا أحد ينام في الإسكندرية . No One Sleeps in Alexandria, trans. Farouk Abdel Wahab
  • طيور العنبر . Birds of Amber, trans. Farouk Abdel Wahab
  •   عتبة المتعة . The Threshold of Pleasure
  • في كل أسبوع يوم جمعة . Every Week Has a Friday
  • أيام التحرير . Days of Tahrir
  • الإسكندرية في غيمة . Clouds Over Alexandria, trans. Kay Heikkinen
  • القاهرة هنا . Cairo is Here

Awards and honors