The View from Garden City: A Novel

Carolyn Baugh

Mar 2011 · Sold by Forge Books

About this ebook

Author Carolyn Baugh tells the moving story of a young American student living in the Garden City district of Cairo. Having come to study Arabic, she learns far more from the Egyptian women, young and old, she meets within the swirl and tumult of Garden City. Living, loving, and flourishing amid the fierce inflexibility of tradition, these women reveal a fascinating world of arranged marriages, secret romances, and the often turbulent bonds between four generations of Arab mothers and daughters.

Meet the women of Garden City:

Huda, who waited desperately for the man she loved until she could wait no longer
Karima, who found her husband in a collapsing post-war world
Afkar, who paid a dreadful price for her freedom
Selwa, who suffered through the deaths of her children
Yusriyya, who left her native village for a new life in the city
Samira, who loved a man who was not hers

Rich with the sights and sounds of modern Egypt, The View from Garden City lifts the veil of privacy to explore the stunning inner strength of women torn between their dreams for the future and the sacrifices women must make in a world of harsh realities.



At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Ratings and reviews

Egyptian life. Rally good book and describes.life in Cairo very well. I loved it!

About the author

Carolyn Baugh, a native of Indiana, studied Arabic and Arab Literature at Duke University, graduating summa cum laude. She spent her junior year abroad studying at the American University in Cairo. She rowed crew for AUC on the Nile, where she met her husband, a member of the Egyptian National Crew team. Ms. Baugh and her husband live in Philadelphia with their two daughters.

Ms. Baugh is now in her fourth year of the Ph.D. program in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania, where her focus is gender issues in Islamic law. She is a frequent public speaker on the subject Islam and women, and is a contributor to The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World.