The American University in Cairo Press, founded in 1960, celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2010. In half a century, the Press has grown from producing one or two books a year in the 1960s to its position today as the leading English-language publisher of the Middle East, with an annual publication program of up to 100 new books, and a backlist catalog offering of over 1,000 publications. To celebrate 50 years of excellence in publishing, Aleya Serour has drawn together extracts from some of the milestones among the fertile and diverse output of the AUC Press over five decades. Here is history, from Kent Weeks on ancient Thebes to Galal Amin on modern Egyptian society; culture, from Bernard O’Kane on early Mamluk decorative arts to Azza Fahmy on jewelry for spirit appeasement; and the best of Arabic literature in translation, from Taha Hussein and Naguib Mahfouz to Alaa Al Aswany and Ahmed Alaidy. . . . And much more, giving a rounded picture of the cultural contribution of one of the major players in Middle East publishing. Click here to download the free PDF.
Writing Egypt
History, Literature, and Culture
Edited by
Aleya Serour
384 pp.
15X23cm
ISBN 9789774163784
For sale worldwide
Related products
Egypt as a Woman
Nationalism, Gender, and Politics
Beth BaronThis original and historically rich book examines the influence of gender in shaping the Egyptian nation from the nineteenth century through the revolution of 1919 and into the 1940s. In Egypt as a Woman, Beth Baron divides her narrative into two strands: the first analyzes the gendered language and images of the nation, and the second considers the political activities of women nationalists. She shows that even though women were largely excluded from participation in the state, the visual imagery of nationalism was replete with female figures. Baron juxtaposes the idealization of the family and the feminine in nationalist rhetoric with transformations in elite households and the work of women activists striving for national independence. ‘’With evenhandedness and generosity, Baron shows how vital women were to mobilizing opposition to British authority and modernizing Egypt.’’—Robert L. Tignor, author of Capitalism and Nationalism at the End of Empire ‘’A wonderful contribution to understanding Egyptian national and gender politics between the two world wars.’’—Donald Malcolm Reid, author of Whose Pharaohs? Archaeology, Museums, and Egyptian National Identity from Napoleon to World War I
...read more
Paperback
304 pp.30 b/w photographs
15X23cm
18.95
Alexandria
City of Memory
Michael HaagIn the decades before Nasser’s seizure of power and the Suez crisis, Alexandria was a magnet for the wealthy, the gifted, and the glamorous from around the world. The whole city looked seaward, its port one of the busiest in the Mediterranean, its spirit ecumenical, its life luxuriant and sensual. Alexandria was barely an Egyptian city, and the Egyptians who live there now inhabit the gently crumbling remains of a foreign world, whose palatial villas, Venetian apartments, art-nouveau cafes, Moorish hotels, and cinemas conceived in thirties deco, are haunted by a departed cast. “I lived a great, extravagant, and colorful life in wartime Alexandria,” recalled Lawrence Durrell, whose Alexandria Quartet is one of the greatest protraits of a city in modern literature. Michael Haag, who has lived in Alexandria, and has known Durrell and others who lived there during its cosmopolitan heyday, has retraced their footsteps to present an absorbing account of the places and the people of this most remarkable of cities. ‘’Michael Haag mixes memory and biography, politics and cultural studies in clear and seamless prose.’’—The New York Review of Books
...read more
Hardbound
352 pp.80 b/w illus.
19X23.5cm
24.95
Ayyubid Cairo
A Topographical Study
Neil D. MacKenzieThis comprehensive study, first published by the AUC Press in 1992 examines the structure of the Ayyubid administration in Cairo and the associated military, religious, and commercial milieux. It goes on to survey in detail the changes in the general layout of Cairo–in defenses, governmental and private buildings, water resources, religious institutions and cemetery areas, and markets and commercial establishments. Click here to download the free PDF.
...read more
11 October 2016
Free e-book
208 pp.3 maps
14.5X23cm
An Armenian Artist in Ottoman Egypt
Yuhanna al-Armani and His Coptic Icons
Magdi GuirguisIntroduction by Nelly Hanna
Yuhanna al-Armani has long been known by historians of Coptic art as an eighteenth-century Armenian icon painter who lived and worked in Ottoman Cairo. Here for the first time is an account of his life that looks beyond his artistic production to place him firmly in the social, political, and economic milieu in which he moved and the confluence of interests that allowed him to flourish as a painter. Who was Yuhanna al-Armani? What was his network of relationships? How does this shed light on the contacts between Cairo’s Coptic and Armenian communities in the eighteenth century? Why was there so much demand for his work at that particular time? And how did a member of Cairo’s then relatively modest Armenian community reach such heights of artistic and creative endeavor? Drawing on eighteenth-century deeds relating to al-Armani and other members of his social network recorded in the registers of the Ottoman courts, Magdi Guirguis offers a fascinating glimpse into the ways of life of urban dwellers in eighteenth-century Cairo, at a time when a civilian elite had reached a high level of prominence and wealth. Illustrated with 28 full-color reproductions of al-Armani’s icons, An Armenian Artist in Ottoman Egypt is a rich and compelling window on Cairene social history that will interest students and scholars of art history, Coptic studies, or Ottoman history.
...read more
Hardbound
144 pp.28 color illus.
15X23cm
19.95