Description
Book SynopsisThat Smell is Sonallah Ibrahim’s modernist masterpiece and one of the most influential Arabic novels. Composed in the wake of a five-year prison sentence, the semi-autobiographical story follows a recently released political prisoner as he wanders through Cairo, adrift in his native city.
Trade Review"One of the Arab world's most distinguished novelist... an intellectual who thoroughly understands the price and value of freedom." -- Sarnia Mehrez - Al-Ahram
"Since the 1960s, Sonallah Ibrahim has been Egypt's literary voice of political conscience." -- Jadaliyya
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That Smell is not just a story, it is a revolution, the beginning of which is the artist's rebellion against himself." -- Yusuf Idris
"
That Smell marks a significant entry into the diminutive collection of Arabic literature translated into English, providing a dramatic new view of literature to American readers who otherwise see hardly any of it. " -- Yasmine El Rashidi - The New York Review of Books
"The pervasive moral corruption of Nasser’s Egypt seeps up between the lines of Ibrahim’s seemingly affectless prose. A landmark in Egyptian literature." -- J. M. Coetzee
"Robyn Creswell has knocked it out of the park with his translation of Sonallah Ibrahim’s modern Egyptian classic." -- Lorin Stein - The Paris Review Daily
"To this day,
That Smell is a modernist masterpiece, a peerless provocation and a lodestar in the history of Arabic literature." -- The Daily Star - Lebanon
"A controlled howl of fury." -- Jeremy Lybarger - Los Angeles Review of Books
"Bold, uncompromising writing." -- The Daily Beast
