Recounting nearly 30 years of Egyptian history in three Cairo summers, Yasmine El Rashidi‘s Chronicle of a Last Summer: A Novel of Egypt drives readers through an evolving — perhaps even crumbling — country on the brink of revolution. At the heart of El Rashidi’s story are the unnamed narrator and her ever-dwindling family. The changes in the city and its politcal landscape are subtle as the narration moves from the mid-1980s to the Arab Spring in 2011, but the comings and goings of her family are not. Continue reading →