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Winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature
"Few writers possess Fatma's boldness”—The New Arab
An urgent and raw confessional of memory and family and all that is lost and won in one woman's lifetime
The discovery of an old tin of chocolates, its contents long ago devoured, marks the entry into this intimate story that reaches back through a lifetime of memories in search of self and home, with the relationship between mother and daughter at its core.
Fatma Qandil describes, in startling and immersive prose, growing up in a middle-class Egyptian family, the youngest child and witness to their declining fortunes. Spanning the 1960s to the present day, her happy childhood melts away to reveal the fecklessness of her selfish older brothers, her father’s addiction, her mother’s illness, and the violence and many deaths, both literal and figurative, that she endures.
In both celebration and suffering, and through triumph and disappointment, her voice is unflinching, revealing both a determination to speak the truth and a poetic sensitivity that is disarming. Recipient of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, this fictional debut marks the arrival of a stunning new voice.
"A gripping read . . . a raw meditation on grief and survival."—The National
"It's language of sheer beauty and power . . . I found myself gasping at times when Qandil delivered one of her many incisive lines."—The Markaz Review
"Astonishing . . . exceptional . . . lit from within by unexpected humor."—Shelf Awareness
"Raw, tenderly crafted."—ArabLit
“Profoundly intimate.”—Arab News
“Fatma’s writing is magnificently fluid . . . Few writers possess Fatma's boldness in this lifetime.”—The New Arab
“Very daring”—The Berliner
"Stunning . . . a really exciting first novel."—Mizna
“Empty Cages is a beautiful, lingering novel.” —Foreword Reviews
"Beautiful and daring. In rich prose, we catch sight of poignant truths, which encompass both hope and disappointment, the weakness of human character and the struggle to resist it, and the pain and pleasure of discovery."—Hussein Hammouda, Cairo University
"Fatma Qandil has successfully created a novel of the self. All her memories are transformed into idols, which she then destroys. She stays there, sweeping up the dusty remains of those idols, even though she may be one herself."—Thaer Deeb, Deputy Director of the Translation Unit at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies
"Fatma Qandil's language is sly. Whenever we catch hold of a thread, we discover it only exists in our imagination. Her genre-mixing, redrawing boundaries or erasing them entirely, is itself an act of freedom"—Shereen Abouelnaga, Cairo University
"An unflinchingly honest portrayal of the relationships of violence that lie beneath the surface of an ordinary, middle-class Egyptian family."—Dina Heshmat, American University in Cairo
Fatma Qandil (Author) is an Egyptian author, poet, playwright, and translator, and was born in 1958. She is associate professor (emerita) in the Department of Arabic at Helwan University in Cairo and deputy editor-in-chief of Fusul, a magazine of literary criticism. She has published numerous collections of poetry, works of literary criticism, and translations into Arabic, and her nonfiction has been translated into many languages worldwide. Empty Cages (Aqfas farigha) is her first novel. She currently lives in Cairo, Egypt.
Adam Talib (Translated by) is associate professor in the Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations at the American University in Cairo, co-editor of the journal Middle Eastern Literatures, and a scholar of classical Arabic poetry. His translation with Katharine Halls of Raja Alem's The Dove's Necklace was awarded the Sheikh Hamad Award. He is also the translator of Khairy Shalaby's The Hashish Waiter (Hoopoe, 2018) and Mekkawi Said's Cairo Swan Song (Hoopoe, 2019.)