Shortlisted for the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation

“Ezzedine Fishere’s novel takes the reader on a rollicking, high-speed chase through Egypt, Sudan, France and Afghanistan, in a tale motivated above all by revenge. This story of how an ordinary lawyer becomes an unstoppable trained killer is an ambitious blend of globe-trotting thriller, family psychodrama and social panorama. Behind the high-octane caper, however, lies a more serious narrative, exploring themes of global politics and finance and of radicalisation in contemporary autocratic states. Fishere’s novel touches on issues of corruption, fundamentalism, fatherly love and the catastrophic effects of violence on the human spirit in a highly personalised narrative, the spirit of which has been admirably captured by Jonathan Wright in a page-turning English translation.”—Judges' comments, Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize

"Ezzedine C. Fishere is a talented novelist. He has created vivid unforgettable characters who will live with us for years after reading the novel. This is a beautiful, well-written, and absolutely enjoyable novel."—Alaa Al Aswany, author of The Yacoubian Building

“Ezzedine Fishere enters the canon of the Arab contemporary novel . . . . one of the outstanding achievements in Arabic literature.”—Dr. Salah Fadl, Al-Ahram

“A rich and intense novel, with unlimited ambition”—Mahmoud Al-Wirdani, Al-Ahram Al-Massai

“. . . reveals the complexity of human interactions with its various institutions, motives, and deep-seated emotions . . . . creating images of the world and ourselves, in other words, of the human condition.”—Ibrahim Fat’hi, Al Qahira Newspaper

Praise for Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge:

"Taking his literary career to new heights . . . Fishere’s characters defy expectations."—Egypt Independent

"A remarkable novel for its style, its plot, and its reach into the experience of straddling two worlds and two states of being."—Banipal

“These characters are described so well, they arouse such empathy that even the reader who has never taken a plane except to go on vacation becomes attached after a few lines . . . . he finds himself suffering with them, living their loneliness, disorientation, nostalgia.”—L’Espresso

Ezzedine C. Fishere is a visiting professor at Dartmouth College, where he teaches Middle East politics and cultures. An acclaimed Egyptian writer and academic, Fishere’s extensive diplomatic experience includes the Egyptian Foreign Service; the United Nations missions in the Middle East and East Africa; acting as a policy adviser to the Egyptian foreign minister; a senior political adviser to the United Nations Missions in Sudan under Kofi Annan; a senior political advisor to the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) in Jerusalem; and head of the political section at the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv. He also directed the Arab-Israeli project at the International Crisis Group. Seven of Fishere’s novels have been published in Arabic, two of which have been nominated for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (often referred to as “the Arabic Booker Prize”) including Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge (Hoopoe/AUC Press.) A Pan-Arab TV adaptation of the Arabic publication of The Egyptian Assassin entitled, “Abou Omar El-Masry,” aired in 2018. The Egyptian Assassin is his second novel to be published in English.

Jonathan Wright is a British literary translator and former journalist currently based in London. His numerous translations into English most recently include, Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi, winner of International Prize for Arabic Fiction. He studied Arabic, Turkish and Islamic civilization at Oxford University and served both as Reuters' Cairo bureau chief and as Reuters’ U.S. foreign policy correspondent based in their Washington, D.C. office.