Idris Yusuf Knihy

From the "genius of the short story," a collection illuminating the lives of the Egyptian lower class by one of the most important and innovative voices of Egyptian literature A Penguin Classic One of Egypt's most acclaimed and well-known authors, Yusuf Idris is heralded as a "renovator and genius of the short story" whose signature stylistic device--the combination of literary and colloquial language à la Huckleberry Finn--transformed Arabic literature. The Cheapest Nights is a collection of some of his most important works, the title story of which follows a man who, unable to sleep, angrily meditates on the state of his life and the extreme poverty in which he finds himself. With compassion, astute observational skills, and biting humor, Idris explores the fraught lives of the Egyptian working class, all the while turning a critical eye on the power structures that oppress them. His collection of short stories, with a foreword by author Ezzedine C. Fishere, is a piercing exploration of power and religion, love and death.

In this finely crafted novel, Yusuf Idris, best known as the master of the Arabic short story, brings to life not only some of the most human characters in modern Arabic fiction but the soul of Cairo itself and the soul of a national consciousness focused on liberation.

Yusuf Idris was undoubtedly one of Egypt's most talented and versatile writers in the second half of the twentieth century. The first two novellas in this volume, Madam Vienna and The Secret of His Power, come from the peak period in his career, the late 1950s and early 1960s, while New York 80 belongs to his late period, the 1980s.