Yacoubian Building - 'Ala Al-Aswani Built in the thirties by an Armenian millionaire, The Yacoubian Building contains within itself all that Egypt was and has become since the building is built in one of the avenues of the city center. By the devout and orthodox son of the porter, who wants to join the police but instead will end up swelling the already thick Islamist militias, his girlfriend, a victim of the oppression of the masters of the poor who live on the roof of the building and dreaming of a life more comfortable the pleasure-loving aristocrat Lord God fearing and very nostalgic for the days of King Farouk who indulges in pleasures absolutely soils, the intellectual with a passion for gay men Nubians, who lives his forbidden love too even illegally, to the businessman unscrupulous floor who wants to enter politics. Each of these characters will end up to make the choices: whatever its outcome, will the reader to decide. Each plays a facet of modern Egypt, where political corruption, a certain richness of dubious origin and religious hypocrisy are natural allies of the arrogance of the powerful, where youthful idealism quickly turns into extremism still prevails, and where old-fashioned image society. Stands out in this novel of manners polluted the complaint, in Egyptian politics and Islamic movements, a complaint is so dear to al-Aswani is now one of the leading exponents of the opposition movement Kifaya.
