I chose to read Zaat by Sonallah Ibrahim for my next reading assingment. I will admit that I did not finish the novel yet, but I have done a decent amount of reading in it.
The book is interesting to say the least. It focuses on the title character, Zaat, who is your typical middle class Egyptian woman. The chapters alternate between Zaats everyday life, and the headlines of the Egyptian newspaper that she works for. Many of these newspaper events deal with Egyptian politics in the late 1980's and early 1990's. The chapters dealing with Zaat's life are a bit scattered and jump from event to event. The stories are random, dealing with everything from house remodeling to bureaucratic dealings to marital relations. Oddly enough things like children and work are hardly mentioned. This isn't a story that flows at all, but is still very well written, and is extremely interesting to read. At times Ibrahim's sense of humor is blatant and other times it is hard to catch, but at times I found myself laughing out loud to some of Zaat's experiences. It did seem like a lot of times Zaat's thinking and ideals were very childish, and slightly demeaning, especially from a female perspective. I did enjoy the book, and would recommend it highly. It isn't the easiest to read, but it is defiantly a good read.
