Chicago

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The author of the acclaimed The Yacoubian Building presents a compelling story of love, sex, friendship, hatred, and ambition set in post-9/11 Chicago, featuring a diverse cast of American and Arab characters. As Egyptian and American lives intersect on a college campus, themes of identity crisis emerge in this eagerly awaited novel by Alaa al Aswany. Among the characters are a sixties-style antiestablishment professor whose relationship with a younger African American woman faces intolerance; a veiled PhD candidate whose traditional beliefs are challenged by American society; an émigré grappling with his American identity amid concerns for his daughter's "honor"; an Egyptian informant torn between religious doctrine and a desire for power; and a dissident student poet seeking to fund his literary dreams, only to find his experience in Chicago unexpectedly complex. This richly populated narrative offers an illuminating portrait of America—a land of contradictions where triumph and failure, opportunity and oppression, and love and desire coexist. Beautifully crafted, the novel is a deeply engrossing exploration of culture and individuality from one of contemporary literature's most original voices.