Empty Cages

Thu, 01 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, Empty Cages is Fatma Qandil’s first novel and her first book available in English. The English translation was published by Hoopoe on May 27, 2025; the paperback edition is 260 pages.

The novel follows a woman looking back across childhood, family life, illness, violence, care, and loss in Cairo. Its power comes from the way private memory, domestic detail, and the long pressures of Egyptian social change gather into a searching account of survival and selfhood.

Naguib Mahfouz Medal on Adam Talib

Empty Cages