{"product_id":"chicago-by-alaa-al-aswany","title":"Chicago by Alaa Al Aswany","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe author of the highly acclaimed The Yacoubian Building returns with a story of love, sex, friendship, hatred, and ambition set in Chicago, with a cast of American and Arab characters achingly human in their desires and needs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEgyptian and American lives collide on a college campus in post-9\/11 Chicago, and crises of identity abound in this extraordinary and eagerly anticipated new novel from Alaa Al Aswany. Among the players are a sixties-style anti-establishment professor whose relationship with a younger African-American woman becomes a moving target for intolerance; a veiled PhD candidate whose belief in the principles of her traditional upbringing is shaken by her exposure to American society; an émigré whose fervent desire to embrace his American identity is tested when he is faced with the issue of his daughter's \"honor\"; an Egyptian informant who spouts religious doctrines while hankering after money and power; and a dissident student poet who comes to America to finance his literary aspirations but whose experience in Chicago turns out to be more than he bargained for.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePopulated by a cast of intriguing, true-to-life characters, Chicago offers an illuminating portrait of America--a complex, often contradictory land in which triumph and failure, opportunity and oppression, licentiousness and tender love, small dramas and big dreams, coexist. Beautifully rendered, Chicago is a powerfully engrossing novel of culture and individuality from one of the most original voices in contemporary world literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlaa Al Aswany is the internationally bestselling author of \u003cem\u003eThe Yacoubian Building\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eChicago\u003c\/em\u003e. A journalist who writes a controversial opposition column, Al Aswany makes his living as a dentist in Cairo.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper Perennial","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67969625620765,"sku":"9780061452581","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0511\/5897\/files\/Screenshot2026-11-04at11.26.47am.png?v=1793809624","url":"https:\/\/www.middleeastbooks.com\/products\/chicago-by-alaa-al-aswany","provider":"Middle East Books and More","version":"1.0","type":"link"}