This brief, beautifically crafted novel introduces one of the finest contemporary Arab novelists to English-speaking audiences. In it, Bahaa' Taher, one of a group of Egyptian writers—including the Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz—noted for their revealing portraits of Egyptian life and society, tells the dramatic story of a young Muslim who, when his life is threatened, finds sanctuary in a community of Coptic monks. It is a tale of honor and of the terrible demands of blood vengeance; it probes the question of how a people or nation can become divided against itself.

Taher has a magical gift for evoking the village life of Upper Egypt—a vastly different setting than urban Cairo and a landscape that tourists usually glimpse only from the windows of trains and buses taking them to the Pharaonic sites. Here, where Christians and Muslims have coexisted peacefully for centuries, where the traditions of the Coptic Church are as powerful as those of the Muslims, Taher crafts an intricate and compelling tale of far-reaching implications. With a powerful narrative voice and a genius for capturing the complex nuances of human interaction, Taher brilliantly depicts the poignant drama of a traditional society caught up in the process of change.

Bahaa' Taher, who lives in Geneva, has written three novels and several collections of short stories. This novel, his most recent, is the first to appear in English. Barbara Romaine teaches Arabic at the College of William and Mary.

"The pleasure of the narrative comes from the large number of characters, from the writing, which is expansive and rich in incidents, and from a moral and historical sense that gives the book depth."—L'Indice dei Libri del Mese

"Beyond the events, Taher draws a very lively portrait of a woman of Islamic civilization in the 1960s, where women, holding their chador between their teeth while their hands serve their men, play the part of the protagonists who are silent but very powerful in the life of the community—a community that is disintegrating with the departure of women for the social emanicipation offered by the big city, and with the end of Safiyya [the book's heroine] and of the superstitions that have persecuted her, as for millenia they have persecuted Egypt, crushed by its myths and by cultural tradition immobilized by time."—Il Sole 24 Ore

"A dramatic and horrifying story. . . . The entirely personal and private flavor of it takes its strength from the vignettes of the main characters—the half-crazed Safiyya, the soberly liberal-minded father, the principled old priest. Simply told, without adornment or much authorial intrusion, this is a brief tragedy with resonances wider than its village setting."—New York Times Book Review

"Ancient tradition defines the way of life for a small Egyptian village faced with disastrous change in this enigmatic novella from Arab writer Bahaa' Taher. . . . Taher structures his tale as the reminiscence of a man now in middle age, who nevertheless remembers the story of Safiyya as if he were still that same impressionable young boy who helped his father save Harbi. And he tells the tale now with that same innocent wonder, giving the story the stark simplicity and implied symbolism of a parable. Yet there is no plain moral to be discovered here. . . . Indeed, Taher's own achievement in this book is to express a complex vision despite the possibility of government censorship. . . . His story works well because it refuses to settle finally on any one level, exploiting the ambiguities of its themes with intelligence and a subtle sympathy for different sides. . . . In this spare and moving novella, elegantly translated by Barbara Romaine, the song of one broken man speaks the larger anguish of a diminished community."—Boston Review

“Aunt Saffiya and the Monastery portrays a remarkable and genuinely harmonious relationship between Muslim inhabitants of a village near Luxor and the monks residing in a nearby Coptic monastery. . . . The translation is faithful to the original. . . . [Romaine] is to be congratulated on her accomplishment.” —World Literature Today

"A fine Egyptian novel, . . . set during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and concerned with the fate of a young Muslim caught up in a blood feud and seeking sanctuary in a Coptic monastery. The rival cultures that he and his patient hosts embody are lucidly presented through a virtuosic weaving of information and drama whose characters—most notably the fugitive's painstakingly decent father and vengeful Aunt Safiyya—are both representative figures and vibrant flesh-and-blood human beings."—Kirkus Reviews

"Filled with details of village life in Egypt and smartly translated to integrate Arabic words that have no direct English equivalent, the style is clear, beautiful and exotic. As a human story of individuals striving for tolerance against traditions of violence, it is one that should appeal not only to those interested in Egyptian history and literature, but also to those interested in the foundations and possibilities of peace."—Publishers Weekly

"Taher is by far the best and most original contemporary Egyptian writer."—Muhammad Siddiq, University of California, Berkeley

"It is a compelling and fascinating book, written in a direct and terse style by a writer who paid attention to his world and saw its limitations clearly but who remembers it with nostalgia and affection."—Segno Sette