Black Magic ― An Egyptian Novel

As a fourteen-year-old, Nasir was entranced by his father's gift of a camera, finding in it the means both to possess beauty and to assert himself. Now a hack working for state television, Nasir meets Fatin, an independent woman older than himself who has escaped a suffocating marriage and is secure in taking what she wants from life. An affair begins that quickly pulls Nasir into a whirlwind of incandescent erotic and emotional obsession.

In a world of superficiality, materialism, violence, and sexual hysteria seen through the unforgiving lens of his camera, Nasir's life is in limbo. A yearning for escape and a fear of loneliness propel him into a relationship in which he is at once enraptured and non-committal. The resolution of this volatile mix lies in a violent confrontation between repulsion and desire.

Black Magic was awarded the prestigious Sawiris Foundation Prize in Egyptian Literature in 2006.

Hamdy el-Gazzar was born in 1970 in Cairo and graduated in philosophy from Cairo University. Since 1990 he has published several short stories and articles in the Arabic press, as well as writing and directing three plays. His first novel, Black Magic (AUC Press, 2007), received the 2006 Sawiris Foundation Prize in Egyptian Literature.

Humphrey Davies is the translator of Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz (AUC Press, 2011) and other works of Arabic literature. He has twice received the Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation: in 2006, for his translation of Elias Khoury's Gate of the Sun, and in 2010, for his translation of Elias Khoury's Yalo. He was also the runner-up in 2012 for his translation of I Was Born There, I Was Born Here by Mourid Barghouti (AUC Press, 2011).