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Sat 07 Jul 2009A panoramic portrait of Egyptian life
SHORT STORIES: Friendly FireBy Alaa Al Aswany Translated by Humphrey Davies Fourth Estate, 219pp. £10.99: IN THE preface to Friendly Fire, a collection of short stories and one novella, Alaa Al Aswany writes of his “insatiable curiosity about and genuine need to understand people and learn from them”.
In his restless pursuit of human variety, he tells us, he has “made friends with poor people and rich, retired politicians and bankrupt former princes, alcoholics, ex-convicts, fallen women, religious fanatics, con men, thugs and gang leaders”.
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