Chicago - Hardcover

Egyptian and American lives collide on a college campus in post-9/11 Chicago, and crises of identity abound in the extraordinary second novel from the highly acclaimed author of The Yacoubian Building. This is a story of love, sex, friendship, hatred, and ambition, pulsating and alive with a rich and unforgettable cast of American and Arab characters who are achingly human in their desires and needs. Beautifully rendered, this is an illuminating portrait of America, a complex, often contradictory land in which triumph and failure, opportunity and oppression, small dramas and big dreams coexist. Chicago is a powerfully engrossing novel of culture and individuality from one of the most original voices in contemporary world literature.

Alaa Al Aswany was born in 1957. A dentist by profession, he is the author of the international bestseller The Yacoubian Building, which has been translated into twenty languages, and the story collection Friendly Fire, which will be published in English in 2009. He lives in Cairo.