Completely True Tales of Um Mimi and Sharawi the Adulterer

Belal Fadl (b. 1974, Cairo) is one of Egypt’s most influential contemporary writers. A journalist, screenwriter, and satirist, he began his career at Rose al-Yūsuf and co-founded the landmark newspaper Al-Dustour. His bold political columns for Al-Masry Al-Youm and Al-Shorouk gained a wide following and often sparked national debate. Fadl has written more than 18 feature films—many of them box-office hits—and is widely credited with shaping a new wave of Egyptian popular cinema. The Completely True Tales of Um Mimi and Sharawi the Adulterer is his first novel to appear in English. He lives and writes in New York.

"A darkly hilarious, devastatingly sharp portrait of Cairo’s underclass in the 1990s. Belal Fadl writes with such verve and vividness that even the most absurd moments feel heartbreakingly real."—Abdelhadi Hreiba, Writer and Cultural Critic