Book Review: If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English by Noor Naga

Question: ´If an Egyptian cannot speak English who gonna tell his story?´.

An American-Egyptian middle-class young woman moves from America to Egypt after the ´revolution´. Her Arabic is still artificious, but she got a position thanks to her mother´s connection, teaching English. He is a boy from the village of Shubrakhit, a former photopher of the ´revolution´, now on drugs and almost homeless. They meet, but there is no happy end - of the American princess saving the Egyptian boyfriend while she discovers herself and her praised heritage hid from her by her American immigrants parents. There is no end, because it is writing in process. But there are many questions, both about the ´American girl´ - whose name will be revealed in the very end - and the ´boy from Shubrakhit´, their own questions, our own questions.

I love to read books about identity, Middle East and revolutions, but unfortunately the demands of the publishers - assumed as the expectations of the market - are almost the same, both in terms of form and of content. A simple story, where the intention of the soul-searching human - usually a woman - of returning to the country of her ancestors is praised, rarely doubted and seldom decrypted with the real code, which in the end may reveal the foolishness of all this. If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English by Noor Naga breaks the curse - finally - with an innovative writing and out-of-the box characters and story.

It is a book about some people in post-revolutionary Egypt. They struggle, they are looking to live but is life really here? Then, of course, the second generation Egyptians, spoiled kids who went on private schools and talk the local language with a strong accent, are returning to find themselves, for their roots, wearing their fancy clothes and Fendi bags - sure, a present from the once Egyptian mother - and their shaved heads. They can leave wherever they want. However, the ´boy from Shubrakhit´ have nowhere to go. Not in Shubrakhit, not in Cairo. 

There is no romance and no revelation of the original culture and unspoiled truths of the origins - worse than any ´orientalisms´. It is a story that doesn´t go wrong or good because there is no story and there is no good or wrong. The ´post-revolutionary´ Egypt is not doing perfectly well either.

The innovative format, with different levels of inter-textuality and literary interrogations about the writing itself is a welcomed detour from the usual literary takes as well. It does not hurt the intelligence of the reader and instead, it offers a journey worth the intelligent effort. There is still hope to write creatively about identity and soul searching. 

Rating: 4.5 stars