Slipping

Egyptian writer Kheir’s enchanting English-language debut follows a journalist and a tour guide full of fantastical stories through a series of strange locations. The story unfolds in Cairo and nearby Egyptian towns during the Arab Spring, when grief-stricken, ennui-ridden magazine writer Seif, whose girlfriend, Alya, was recently killed during a protest, is assigned to accompany Bahr on excursions to unfamiliar places. Bahr leads Seif to an Alexandrian site where two streetcar trains narrowly miss striking them, and later shows him how to appear to walk on water at the Nile (it’s an illusion, as an upriver floodgate’s closure drops the water level). Along the way, Bahr tells of a befuddled soon-to-be groom who wakes in a garbage-ridden trench in an unfamiliar neighborhood after missing his wedding three days earlier, among other stories. Bahr’s tales trigger memories in Seif—such as one about a man whose father dies and whose mother began receiving messages from the dead man, and another about flowers falling from the sky, which reminds Seif of being separated on the street from Alya before she was killed—and soon his sense of reality becomes increasingly blurred. Throughout, Kheir demonstrates a marvelous imagination and harnesses the magic of storytelling. Readers are in for a treat. (June)