‘The Lady from Zamalek’ weaves together fiction and history

“The Lady of Zamalek” by Egyptian author and judge Ashraf El-Ashmawi is the story of a Jack of all trades whose life and legacy takes place against the backdrop of 20th century Egyptian history and a 1927 murder that shook Cairo. Translated by Peter Daniels, El-Ashmawi’s English debut seamlessly weaves fiction and history into a tale of opportunity, betrayal, obsession and murder, through his main characters

Abbas Mahalawi, his sister Zeinab and his daughter Nadia. The ragsto-riches journey is no simple feat, and certainly not a linear path, as

Abbas realizes that wealth is not easy to come by and even more difficult to hold on to.

Hailing from Fuadiya, a village in the Delta, Abbas’s humble beginnings are the catalyst for his obsession with money and power. With three sisters and a mother at home, as well as a father who is unpleasant when present and unnoticed when gone, Abbas leaves for Alexandria to pursue a vocational career, but when that fails, he sells cigarettes to make ends meet. From there he moves between jobs and cities until he finds himself among a group of men who rob and kill a prominent businessman in the Zamalek district of Cairo, Solomon Cicurel. The other assailants are quickly arrested and executed for their crime, but Abbas escapes. With him he takes a map that leads to a secret safe with Cicurel’s fortune, shaping his life’s obsession into a quest with the help of Zeinab.

Moving through the British occupation and the Second

World War, the 1952 revolution and presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the wars against Israel and the leadership of Hosni Mubarak, El-Ashmawi’s characters live against the backdrop of Egyptian history. Between Abbas’s pursuit of wealth,

Zeinab’s survival instincts and Nadia’s own trials and tribulations, their lives overlap and reveal more trickery and mystery than answers.

In a brilliantly spun tale that entangles itself in suspicion and fatal mistakes, El-Ashmawi’s characters move from one ill-fated scheme to another, playing with politics and powerful people. El-Ashmawi paints a story where money comes and goes, power changes hands, and where both can disappear in an instant. Everything comes to a head in Cairo where prices must be paid and a showdown for past errors is all but inevitable.