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If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English

By: Noor Naga
Narrated by: Amin El Gamal, Noor Naga
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Publisher's summary

Winner of the Graywolf Press African Fiction Prize, a lush experimental novel about love as a weapon of empire.

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, an Egyptian American woman and a man from the village of Shobrakheit meet at a café in Cairo. He was a photographer of the revolution, but now finds himself unemployed and addicted to cocaine, living in a rooftop shack. She is a nostalgic daughter of immigrants “returning” to a country she’s never been to before, teaching English and living in a light-filled flat with balconies on all sides. They fall in love and he moves in. But soon their desire—for one another, for the selves they want to become through the other—takes a violent turn that neither of them expected.

A dark romance exposing the gaps in American identity politics, especially when exported overseas, If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English is at once ravishing and wry, scathing and tender. Told in alternating perspectives, Noor Naga’s experimental debut examines the ethics of fetishizing the homeland and punishing the beloved . . . and vice versa. In our globalized twenty-first-century world, what are the new faces (and races) of empire? When the revolution fails, how long can someone survive the disappointment? Who suffers and, more crucially, who gets to tell about it?

©2022 Noor Naga (P)2022 Recorded Books
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What listeners say about If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English

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Captivating Read

It held my interest interest the whole time intently. A riveting, unexpected story, Highly Recommend.

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Perfect

This has been on my tbr list for a few months now, but I am so glad I chose the audiobook because I would not have had the same experience reading it to myself.

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Wow!

Honestly, I can't say anything about this book without spoiling and you deserve to get into it fresh.

Like I had some qualms about how Amin pronounces some arabic words but after going through all of it it all feels intentional and I love it.

Read it, listen to it, you'll love it!

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one of the most innovative endings I've ever seen

cannot recommend it enough! Noor Naga is brilliant & the audiobook is so well produced!

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The story you did not know your heart was yearning to hear

Diaspora Egyptians who crave a taste of home unadulterated by parental perspective, voyeuristic native fetishization of the homeland or those who shamefully do not understand their identity can see themselves in both characters, for they are antiheroes we all are. Raw reality of Egypt and Egyptians and love that runs like blood.

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