In the Fourth Century A.D., independent and determined young Charis is forbidden to become a doctor because she is a woman. Disguising herself as a eunuch, she flees Ephesus and an unwanted marriage for Alexandria, then the center of learning. There she apprentices to a Jewish doctor but eventually becomes ... more >
The remarkable story of the intrepid French archaeologist who led the international effort to save ancient Egyptian temples from the floodwaters of the Aswan Dam, by the New York Times bestselling author of Madame Fourcade’s Secret War In the 1960s, the world’s attention was focused on a nail-biting race against ... more >
The warm and winning story of opening a modern bookstore where there were none, Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller recounts Nadia Wassef’s troubles and triumphs as a founder and manager of Cairo-based Diwan The streets of Cairo make strange music. The echoing calls to prayer; the raging insults ... more >
From the Neolithic cave paintings in Wadi Sura – created long before it was a desert when the region was savannah grassland – to the Valley of the Kings to the rock-cut temples at Abu Simbel, and from the vast temple complexes at Karnak and Luxor to the funerary mask ... more >
A paraquel to “The Next Pharaoh.” General Horemheb is confident of becoming Pharaoh when Ay dies childless. Over-confident? He understands men. But not, alas, women, who are as unpredictable and disobedient as cats. The gods, possibly offended, challenge him with plots, pretenders, disappearances, assassins, magic, and willful women–not to mention ... more >
Forty years ago in Egypt, the mystic and inventor Al-Jahiz pierced the veil between realms, sending magic into the world before vanishing into the unknown. Now in 1912 Cairo, humans brush elbows with djinn in crowded tramcars and airships sail the skies. In this new world the Egyptian Ministry of ... more >