? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

In an Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh is a touching ode to Cairo, which may come as a bit of a shocker to many of us living in the busy and bustling city. This semi-autobiographical re-telling of Ghosh’s own time in Egypt was inspired by his work as an anthropologist. He was inspired by a letter that he found from Bomma, an Indian slave from Mangalore to Abraham Ben Yiju, a 12th Century Jewish trader from Tunisia. Intrigued, he takes it on himself to journey to Egypt to find out the circumstances that brought Bomma, a name he ascribed to him, to the Middle East. He poses the questions: Where did he live? How did he meet Ben Yiju? And who was he exactly? He pieces the fragments that he finds in a finely-woven historical non-fiction that will make you look at our Egypt with a different eye, one that is similar to the 12th Century slave himself. Alongside these chapters are his hilarious first-person narrative of his time in Lataifa and Nashawy, two Nile Delta villages he lived in as he was completing his doctoral thesis. There, we see scenes where he is welcomed as a treasured and honored guest, the moments where the residents attempt to convert him to Islam and the hilarious episode where they try to marry him off. This novel is both a pleasure and an eye-opener: Through his research, you’ll discover how the city of Cairo was named, how the trade business worked in the Middle East, how theCairo Geniza is a gift that keeps on giving and how enduring, and endearing, the Egyptian people are.

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