All That Decency Will Allow: Disrupting Meaning and Relocating Power in The Yacoubian Building

The Yacoubian Building is the rare Egyptian novel to have achieved global acclaim.

by Hani Omar Khalil

In fiction, as in therapy, the guiding analytical frame must always be “Why now?”: how is today different from any other day? Why this precise moment in history to tell this particular story? These are neither interesting nor especially novel inquires, but they are ones for which every narrative, whether personal or literary, will ine…