One of the more bonkers things that Carrie did this year was to participate in a panel of booksellers from across the country who were responsible for choosing the ten best debut books of the year. They read a gajillion books and somehow whittled these down to ten winners, each of which is an “Indies Introduce” title. One of the winners is a stunning debut novel called Cairo Circles, and we’re thrilled to welcome the author, Doma Mahmoud, to Skylark for a virtual event on Wednesday, October 13. This is the only online event that Doma will be doing while he is in the US and we are very proud to have him. Doma will be in conversation with New York Times best-selling novelist Fatima Farheen Mirza.
Here’s what Carrie had to say about the book: : “Every so often an author is just as good at plotting as they are at developing characters. Mahmoud has crafted a beast of a novel with woven points of view, topics that matter, and enough heart to bring on the feels. I can only hope that this debut is just the beginning.”
To register for this free online event, click here.
Sherif “Sheero” Abdallah is an NYU student reveling in independence, free from the judgmental gaze of his conservative family in Egypt to indulge in all sorts of pleasures. When the FBI comes knocking on his door, he’s convinced it’s a case of mistaken identity—until they show him a picture of his cousin Amir. Amir has perpetrated a horrific attack and Sheero is suddenly forced to return to Cairo and confront the events that led to their wildly different circumstances.
While Amir wore Sheero’s hand-me-downs and suffered at the hands of neglectful, abusive parents, Sheero attended Cairo’s most prestigious high school, where he and his best friend Taymour, the son of one of Cairo’s business moguls, could enjoy sports clubs, beach vacations, high-end dining, and socializing with girls from the French and British schools. Once inseparable cousins, Sheero and Amir grew further apart, Amir ultimately having more in common with the children of Taymour’s housekeeper: Omar, Mustafa, and Zeina.
In Cairo Circles, the lives of this unforgettable group of six young Egyptians intertwine dramatically over the course of over a decade, revealing complex relationships dominated by faith, tradition, social class, and the boundaries of personal freedom. An epic, multi-perspective page-turner, Doma Mahmoud's debut introduces readers to a bold and inventive new voice in fiction as Cairo's streets burst to life on the page.
Doma Mahmoud has an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University. He currently teaches at the American University of Cairo and is based in Cairo, Egypt. Cairo Circles is his first book.
Fatima Farheen Mirza was born in 1991 and raised in California. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship. She is the author of A Place for Us.
