

If An Egyptian Cannot Speak English
Shortlisted for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize
Shortlisted for the 2022 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Winner of the Graywolf Press African Fiction Prize, a lush experimental novel about love as a weapon of empire.
In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, an Egyptian American woman and a man from the village of Shobrakheit meet at a café in Cairo. He was a photographer of the revolution, but now finds himself unemployed and addicted to cocaine, living in a rooftop shack. She is a nostalgic daughter of immigrants “returning” to a country she’s never been to before, teaching English and living in a light-filled flat with balconies on all sides. They fall in love and he moves in. But soon their desire―for one another, for the selves they want to become through the other―takes a violent turn that neither of them expected.
Play Sample
If An Egyptian Cannot Speak English
Written by: Noor Naga
Narrated by: Amin El Gamal and Noor Naga
Published by: Recorded Books