Ice

By: Sonallah Ibrahim, Margaret Litvin (Translator)

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Hardcover | 15 November 2019 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover
256 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
2.09 x 1.34 x 0.27

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The year is 1973. An Egyptian historian, Dr. Shukri, pursues a year of non-degree graduate studies in Moscow, the presumed heart of the socialist utopia. Through his eyes, the reader receives a guided tour of the sordid stagnation of Brezhnev-era Soviet life: intra-Soviet ethnic tensions; Russian retirees unable to afford a tin of meat; a trio of drunks splitting a bottle of vodka on the sidewalk; a Kirgiz roommate who brings his Russian girlfriend to live in his four-person dormitory room; black-marketeering Arab embassy officials; liberated but insecure Russian women; and Arab studentsâ debates about the geographically distant October 1973 War. Shukri records all this in the same numbly factual style familiar to fans of Sonallah Ibrahimâs That Smell, punctuating it with the only redeeming sources of beauty available: classical music LPs, newly acquired Russian vocabulary, achingly beautiful women, and strong Georgian tea.

Based on Ibrahimâs own experience studying at the All-Russian Institute of Cinematography in Moscow from 1971 to 1973, Ice offers a powerful exploration of Arab confusion, Soviet dysfunction, and the fragility of leftist revolutionary ideals.

Industry Reviews

"The structure of Ice mimics a diary--and depends on the writer's telegraphic but carefully honed style, which gives the reader a sense of the chilling, grim texture of daily life in Soviet Russia in the 1970s."-- "World Literature Today"
"Since the appearance--such as it was--of his debut 1966 novella, the Egyptian writer Sonallah Ibrahim has been one of the most intriguing and important figures in contemporary Arabic literature. . . . Written and published at the very moment Egypt was entering the Arab Spring, Ice is a curious missive from a partly real, partly imagined past to a generation awakening to hope and upheaval--as well as the possibility of dashed illusions."-- "4Columns"

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