Chronicle of a Last Summer

Rashidi’s nostalgic debut novel recounts three summers in Cairo. The book begins in the summer of 1984, shortly after Hosni Mubarak becomes President. The unnamed narrator is a young girl who lives with her mother and grandmother and attends an English school. Her Baba—her father—is away, in Geneva, she thinks. Her cousin Dido dotes on her and tries to engage her in more political talk. The second section of the book is set in 1998, when the narrator is now a university student and an aspiring filmmaker. Dido has grown even more political. The young people all yearn for change but what shakes them up is a massacre and a deep fear of terrorism. Finally, we meet the characters again in the summer of 2014, after the Arab Spring and Mubarak’s ouster. The narrator is living with her mother once again and still awaiting news about her Baba. She is acutely aware of how difficult it is to affect any real change, and Dido prefers anarchy to the despotism of Mubarak. In many ways, the book illustrates how the personal is political: almost every facet of daily life has some political implication, and the narrator sees writing as a tool of change, too. El Rashidi’s family saga twists and turns but ultimately suffers from too much meandering. Agent: Zoe Pagnamenta, Zoe Pagnamenta Agency. (June)