Let's take a look at Tareq Imam's latest book, shortlisted for the prestigious International Prize for Arabic Fiction.
We are in Cairo in 2045. The Cairo Work Gallery, an independent art gallery dedicated to marginalised arts, announces that it offers a grant to create a model of Cairo in 2020, when the city was still the capital of Egypt.
The novel explores the capital at four different periods of its history: 2045, 2020, 2011 and an unknown time in the distant future, with an independent artist speaking for each period.
There is Urija, an avid model maker of the city who has suffered the stigma of being blamed for his father's death since he was a child; Noud, a documentary filmmaker under police surveillance since her release from prison, who was convicted of offending public morals in her last film; Balardo, a street artist from the Arab Spring, who is pursued by the police for defacing the city's walls; and Manga, an illustrator.
While the different periods of time intersect, the location remains the same. "Cairo Maquette" explores the city's relationship with individuals, and in particular with its artists, marginalized, in search of their identity, rejected by the state as well as by society.
Tareq Imam is an Egyptian novelist and journalist born in 1977. He is the deputy editor of Cairo Radio and Television magazine. He has started his writing career at a young age, publishing his first collection of short stories, "New Birds Unspoiled by the Air", at the age of eighteen. He has published eleven books of novels and short stories, including "The Calm of Killers" (2007), "The Second Life of Constantine Cavafis" (2012), "My Father's Shrine" (2013), "The City of Endless Walls" (2018), and "The Taste of Sleep" (2019).