Books like يوتوبيا

We are two peoples...two peoples...two peoplesLook where the first is, and where's the otherDraw the lines between them, brother--Abdel Rahman el-AbnoudiDraw the lines is what Ahmed Khaled Towfik does, spinning out the distance between the super rich, who have walled themselves into elite enclosed splendour on a small stretch of Egypt's coast, and the masses sunk into a hyper-violent and bestial state of misery and filthiest poverty. A violent and moral fairytale of one possible future, and a call to action before it is too late, and written on the eve of the Arab spring. How could it not be of interest?Separate from the obvious political statement that the book is making, in terms of plot, I still find the common theme of apocalypse and the retreat of human kind to a state far removed from any kind of humanity to be a terribly masculine idea, and a genre which always seems to become enamoured of its own brutal depths. Octavia Butler stands as the best contrast I think, as in Parable of the Sower. Not that brutality is absent from her world, but with the existence of people coming together to rescue, salvage and build something new. This might even be easier once all of the rich people have taken themselves off, who knows?