Autographed 'first edition' available ($150), published by Summit Books, 1985
Najib al-Rihani and the Development of comedy in Egypt.Madbouli Press,Cairo.2004
A Bridge Through Time
Laila Said's struggle to become a modern woman in Egypt during the past three decades.
Excerpted from the book:
"When we arrived at the large, sunny terrace of the hotel overlooking the pyramids of Giza, there was a wide circle of formally dressed people waiting for us. The men were dressed in dark suits and silk ties, and the women wore cashmere sweaters, expensive sunglasses, and jewelry that glittered in the sun."
Middle East Journal: A Woman's Journey into the Heart of the Arab World
This series of interviews and journal entries presents a revealing look at the Arab intellectual community and its views on Islamic extremism, the Arab Palestinian conflict and democracy in the Arab world.
Abou-Saif, Laila, Middle East Journal: A Woman's Journey into the Heart of the Arab World. Mar 1990. 320p. Scribner, $21.95 (0-684-19136-9). Gallery.
"An expatriate Egyptian returns to her country's riverine lifeline to tell Americans "why Arabs feel the way they do." The vehicle she chooses -- about 40 interviews loosely linked by a diary -- carries the news that they are concerned with religion, Anwar Sadat's legacy, the U.S. role in the region, and the conflict with Isreal. Of her interlocutors, drawn chiefly from fellow members of the professions, Najib Mahfous, holder of the the 1988 Nobel Prize in literature, and Zeinab al-Ghazzali, a veiled Islamic fundamentalist, are particularly elequent. Do their views also animate the populace at large? Unfortunately there are no person-in-the-bazaar interviews to give us a clue, but there is one with Yassir Arafat, whom the author compares not with a liberator figure, but with Napoleon! Still, the pages emit the heat, dust, and calls from Cairo's minarets, making the book a worthy aquisition."
-- Gilbert Taylor, Booklist
Abou-Saif, Laila. Middle East Journal. Scribner, $21.95
"This series of interviews and journal entries presents a revealing look a the Arab intellectual community and its views on Sadat, Camp David, American cultural influences, and the PLO's claims. Useful as background reading on the Middle East crisis for good students."
-- Candace Smith
"Complex relationships among Isreal, Egypt, the Palestinians an the United States are explored with personal insight by Lalia Abou-Saif, Ph. D. '69, an Egyptian by birth, in her recent book, "Middle East Journal: A Woman's Journey into the HEart of the Arab World" (Charles Scribners Sons). 1990
"Abou-Saif enlisted the trust of a wide variety of Middle Easterners including Yassir Arafat, because she is one of them. She readily translates their thoughts and feelings for westerners in a way they can understand because she has lived and taught in America." -
Choice Magazine
