Imaginary Landscapes: The Village and the Desert in Egyptian novels, Ahmad Saidullah

Mohamed Mustagab. Tales from Dayrut. Translated by Humphrey Davies. Cairo and New York: American University in Cairo Press, 2008. 204 pages.Miral Al-Tahawy. Gazelle Tracks. Translated by Anthony Calderbank. Reading, UK: Garnet Publishing, 2008. 94 pages.I. Cities, villages and deserts form the landscapes of the Egyptian literary imagination. The novel, which emerged in Egypt after the Napoleonic conquest in 1798, best expresses the tension between the traditional and the modern through this anxi