Egypt + 100

About

Egypt + 100 poses a question to twelve contemporary Egyptian authors: what might your country look like in the year 2111 – exactly a century after the failed Tahrir Square Revolution? Might Egypt still be in the grip of ‘friendly authoritarianism’, clinging to power with all the weapons of futurism at its disposal: protest-avoidant architecture, excessive surveillance, the slow replacement of the outside world with the virtual one. Or might other historical forces come into play, pairing pragmatism with tolerance, and realising some of the lost aspirations of the long-cancelled ‘Arab Spring’.

Covering a range of styles – from SF noir, to supernatural horror, to political farce – these stories use the blank canvas of the future to process recent traumas that Egypt has yet to come to terms with. Along the way, we encounter gladiatorial entertainments, anti-procreation resistance movements, the decline of Cairo into a lawless wasteland, far from the gated security of the New Capital, and the simultaneous flooding of lower Egypt with the drying up of the Nile. Each story offers an object lesson in the strange logic of authoritarianism, and how, as the editor puts it, politicians’ fantasies ‘eventually become the citizens’ worst nightmares.’ 

Translated by: Majd Abu Shawish, Robin Moger, Andrew Leber, Elisabeth Jaquette, Mohammed Ghalayini, Raphael Cohen, Raph Cormack, Paul Starkey, Mayada Ibrahim, Basma Ghalayini. Maisa Almanasreh, and Rana Asfour.

Press

‘Taken together, these twelve stories, crafted in markedly different styles, create a portrait of the anxieties of different contemporary Egyptian writers: of the loss of community and shared memory; of extremes of surveillance and control; of the devastating potential of climate change; and of future versions of Egyptian cities that don’t leave room for people to gather, to protest, and to forge new demands for the future.’ - ArabLit