Empty Cages

Winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for LiteratureFew writers possess Fatma's boldnessThe New ArabAn urgent and raw confessional of memory and family and all that is lost and won in one woman's lifetimeThe discovery of an old tin of chocolates, its contents long ago devoured, marks the entry into this intimate story that reaches back through a lifetime of memories in search of self and home,with the relationship between mother and daughter at its core.Fatma Qandildescribes,in startling and immersive prose,growingup in a middle-class Egyptianfamily, the youngest child and witness to their declining fortunes. Spanning the 1960s to the present day,her happy childhood melts away to reveal the fecklessness of her selfish older brothers, her fathers addiction, her mothers illness, and the violence and many deaths, both literal and figurative, that she endures.In both celebration and suffering, and through triumph and disappointment,hervoice is unflinching, revealing both a determination to speak the truth and a poetic sensitivity that is disarming.Recipient of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, this fictional debut marks the arrival of a stunning new voice.