Memories of a Cairo Fugitive


Book Description

After a hasty escape to Egypt to avoid punishment for his partner, Lord Greenwich's vast financial crimes, former Mombasa solicitor and gigolo, Manik Mudigonda, is forced to adapt to a life without parties and without company in pre-World War I Cairo. Once again, the rejected Brahmin prince from Benares tries to find a niche for himself in an alien land that doesn't initially seem to have a niche for a piebald, red-eyed, bulimic criminal lawyer without much self confidence, and yet it is in arid, claustrophobic, poorly governed British Egypt that Manik's professional and personal lives come into full bloom. Not only does Manik's legal career flourish against all odds, fighting for his criminal clients' rights to appeal, coping with embedded corruption, racism, and constant condescention, but also he succeeds at initiating his first monogamous relationship, hidden from the disapproving glare of Egyptian culture. An ode to resiliance in the face of unusual hardship, the synchronicity of strength and fragility of the human psyche, and the elusive, inexplicable nature of love, Manik Mudigonda tries to narrate his life, if for no other reason than to try to remember.




Inside the Brotherhood


Book Description

This is the first in-depth study of the relationship between the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and its own members. Drawing on years of participant observation, extensive interviews, previously inaccessible organizational documents, and dozens of memoirs and writings, the book provides an intimate portrayal of the recruitment and socialization of Brothers, the evolution of their intricate social networks, and the construction of the peculiar ideology that shapes their everyday practices. Drawing on his original research, Kandil reinterprets the Brotherhood’s slow rise and rapid downfall from power in Egypt, and compares it to the Islamist subsidiaries it created and the varieties it inspired around the world. This timely book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the politics of the Middle East and to anyone who wants to understand the dramatic events unfolding in Egypt and elsewhere in the wake of the Arab uprisings.




Fugitives


Book Description

Shrouded in government secrecy, clouded by myths and propaganda, the enigmatic tale of Nazi fugitives in the early Cold War has never been properly told—until now. In the aftermath of WWII, the victorious Allies vowed to hunt Nazi war criminals “to the ends of the earth.” Yet many slipped away to the four corners of the world or were shielded by the Western Allies in exchange for cooperation. Most prominently, Reinhard Gehlen, the founder of West Germany's foreign intelligence service, welcomed SS operatives into the fold. This shortsighted decision nearly brought his cherished service down, as the KGB found his Nazi operatives easy to turn, while judiciously exposing them to threaten the very legitimacy of the Bonn Government. However, Gehlen was hardly alone in the excessive importance he placed on the supposed capabilities of former Nazi agents; his American sponsors did much the same in the early years of the Cold War. Other Nazi fugitives became freelance arms traffickers, spies, and covert operators, playing a crucial role in the clandestine struggle between the superpowers. From posh German restaurants, smuggler-infested Yugoslav ports, Damascene safehouses, Egyptian country clubs, and fascist holdouts in Franco's Spain, Nazi spies created a chaotic network of influence and information. This network was tapped by both America and the USSR, as well as by the West German, French, and Israeli secret services. Indeed, just as Gehlen and his U.S sponsors attached excessive importance to Nazi agents, so too did almost all other state and non-state actors, adding a combustible ingredient to the Cold War covert struggle. Shrouded in government secrecy, clouded by myths and propaganda, the tangled and often paradoxical tale of these Nazi fugitives and operatives has never been properly told—until now.







Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant


Book Description

DigiCat presents the Civil War Memories Series. This meticulous selection of the firsthand accounts, memoirs and diaries is specially comprised for Civil War enthusiasts and all people curious about the personal accounts and true life stories of the unknown soldiers, the well known commanders, politicians, nurses and civilians amidst the war. Main focus of Grant's writing in his autobiography is on his military career during the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War. Original edition of Grant's Memoirs was published by Mark Twain shortly after Grant's death.




My Memoirs


Book Description







The Memoirs Of Duke Of Rovigo


Book Description

As the tide of the French revolution swept away the noble privileges many of high birth fled the country, some officers stayed despite the danger of the revolutionaries, including both Napoleon and Anne-Jean-Marie-René Savary, loyal to the state and sniffing advancement. Savary enlisted as a volunteer and was posted to the Armies of the Sambre and Meuse rivers and then the Rhine, his distinguished services led him to selected as an aide-de-camp of General Desaix who was known as a shrewd judge of characters both of men and of soldiers. It was in the sands of the desert during the Egyptian Campaign in 1798 that Savary met Napoleon he would serve faithfully for the next 17 years in the almost unbroken conflict that scarred Europe. He served admirably with his old commander Desaix during the Italian Campaign in 1800, after Desaix fell at the battle of Marengo Napoleon decided to take Savary into his confidence and appointed him head of his bodyguard. Promoted to Général de Division in 1805 shortly before the Austerlitz campaign. Once again he displayed great gallantry and courage during the fighting, but Napoleon saw that his abilities were also of use away from the field, and started to use him as a diplomat upon who he could always rely. After further missions, particularly in intrigues in Spain, Savary was appointed Minister of Police in 1810, he discharged his duties with a zeal that would not have been out of place in the Spanish Inquisition but was at fault during the attempted coup d’état of General Malet in 1812 whilst the Grande Armée was struggling through the snows of Russia. He served on as a faithful servant of Napoleon until the bitter end after Waterloo in 1815, and was considered dangerous enough to be refused permission to go the Elba with his former master. The First Volume includes his early years in the army, Egypt, the Italian campaign, treasons of Moreau and Pichegru, the 1805 Austerlitz Campaign and the Jena campaign 1806.




Postcolonial Literatures in Context


Book Description

This book presents an introduction to key issues involved in the study of postcolonial literature including diasporas, postcolonial nationalisms, indigenous identities and politics and globalization. This book also contains a chapter on afterlives and adaptations that explores a range of wider cultural texts including film, non-fiction and art.




The Last Watchman of Old Cairo


Book Description

In this “wonderfully rich” (San Francisco Chronicle) novel from the author of the internationally bestselling The Oracle of Stamboul, a young man journeys from California to Cairo to unravel centuries-old family secrets. “This book is a joy.”—Rabih Alameddine, author of the National Book Award finalist An Unnecessary Woman WINNER OF: THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION’S SOPHIE BRODY AWARD • THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD IN FICTION • THE SAMI ROHR PRIZE FOR JEWISH LITERATURE • Named One of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the BBC • Longlisted for the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Fiction Prize • A Penguin Random House International One World, One Book Selection • Honorable Mention for the Middle East Book Award Joseph, a literature student at Berkeley, is the son of a Jewish mother and a Muslim father. One day, a mysterious package arrives on his doorstep, pulling him into a mesmerizing adventure to uncover the centuries-old history that binds the two sides of his family. From the storied Ibn Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo, where generations of his family served as watchmen, to the lives of British twin sisters Agnes and Margaret, who in 1897 leave Cambridge on a mission to rescue sacred texts that have begun to disappear from the synagogue, this tightly woven multigenerational tale illuminates the tensions that have torn communities apart and the unlikely forces that attempt to bridge that divide. Moving and richly textured, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is a poignant portrait of the intricate relationship between fathers and sons, and an unforgettable testament to the stories we inherit and the places we are from. Praise for The Last Watchman of Old Cairo “A beautiful, richly textured novel, ambitious and delicately crafted, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is both a coming-of-age story and a family history, a wide-ranging book about fathers and sons, religion, magic, love, and the essence of storytelling. This book is a joy.”—Rabih Alameddine, author of the National Book Award finalist An Unnecessary Woman “Lyrical, compassionate and illuminating.”—BBC “Michael David Lukas has given us an elegiac novel of Cairo—Old Cairo and modern Cairo. Lukas’s greatest flair is in capturing the essence of that beautiful, haunted, shabby, beleaguered yet still utterly sublime Middle Eastern city.”—Lucette Lagnado, author of The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit and The Arrogant Years “Brilliant.”—The Jerusalem Post




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