Otared: A Novel (Hoopoe Fiction)

SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC FICTIONA horror-filled obituary on Egypt's failed revolution2025: fourteen years after the failed revolution, Egypt is invaded once more. As traumatized Egyptians eke out a feral existence in Cairo's dusty downtown, former cop Ahmed Otared joins a group of fellow officers seeking Egypt's liberation through the barrel of a gun.As Cairo becomes a foul cauldron of drugs, sex, and senseless violence, Otared finally understands his country's fate.In this unflinching and grisly novel, Mohammad Rabie envisages a grim future for Egypt, where death is the only certainty.

Youssef Rakha, author of The Crocodiles and The Book of the Sultan's Seal

"Part early Ian McEwan, part Philip K. Dick, Mohammad Rabie's apocalyptic take on the Arab Spring in Egypt is an expressionist coupurgent, disturbing, and eminently readable."

Times Literary Supplement

"A book of perverse and stomach-curdling violence that would have been unthinkable before the 2011 revolution, which inspired it."

New York Times

"Gritty."

The National

"Reading Otared is by and large like having a hand grasping the back of your head, forcing you to look through photos from hell."

Culture Trip

"More than just a portrait of a bleak future, this novel is of course a trenchant critique of modern Egypt. In Robin Moger's deft translation, Rabie's deployment of irony is skillfully rendered, a tool he uses to invert his country's contemporary characteristics in an attempt to underscore the absurdity of his narrative."

Book Description

A horror-filled obituary on Egypt's failed revolution

About the Author

Born in 1978, Mohammad Rabie is the author of three acclaimed novels. His first novel, Amber's Planet, won first prize in the Emerging Writers category of the Sawiris Cultural Award in 2012, and he received the same award for Otared in 2016. He lives in Cairo, Egypt.Robin Moger studied Egyptology and Arabic at Oxford University before working as a journalist in Cairo for six years. He is the translator of A Dog with No Tail by Hamdi Abu Golayyel (AUC Press, 2009) and Women of Karantina by Nael Eltoukhy (AUC Press, 2014), and his translation for Writing Revolution (2013) won the 2013 English PEN Award for outstanding writing in translation.

Reviews

News