Beyond the Pyramids – travels in Egypt –

“…In this quirky and highly original travel book, Douglas Kennedy takes us on such a journey as he loiters with intent in modern Egypt. Sidestepping the usual assortment of pyramids, Ptolemaic temples and other ancient debris, he instead finds himself encountering an Egypt far removed from the common  ‘archaeological theme park’ image – an Egypt where Bedouin watch American television in an oasis on the edge of nowhere … where monks in a desert cloister know a thing or two about word processors … where an entire community of Cairo’s poor have set up residence in a cemetery … and where a young law student can simultaneously express his devotion to the word of Allah and to the songs of Michael Jackson.

He discovers an Egypt delicately balanced between a multitude of conflicting identities; a major Arab nation struggling to find its way in the late twentieth century, while attempting to keep the gathering  forces of Islamic fundamentalism at bay.

Beyond the Pyramids is a dazzling chronicle of travels through a landscape strewn with incongruities; a landscape peopled by a vivid supporting cast of intriguing characters, whose stories all form part of Kennedy’s pungently funny, compulsively entertaining, yet ultimately serious portrait of Egypt today.’