A detective thriller set in DUNEDIN
Novel set mainly in later 20th Century CAIRO
11th March 2025
What I Know About You by Eric Chacour, novel set mainly in later 20th Century CAIRO.
Translated by Pablo Strauss.
Shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2025; Fiction With A Sense Of Place
Tarek has his life mapped out as a doctor, following in the footsteps of his father and he has now taken over his 
practice. He marries his childhood sweetheart and life moves on in predictable stages.
He employs Ali, who is the son of one of his patients and a fleeting kiss between the two sends the trajectory of his life into free-fall. He soon understands that Ali has died and he takes himself away from the city of his birth, away from everything that feels familiar and settles in Montréal, where he establishes a new life. His life is told by a third person, referring to him as ‘you’, which on the one hand gives the whole feel an immediacy, yet on the other can also feel alienating – I do, however, feel that the author generally pulls it off in this novel. The book is divided into sections of irregular lengths, titles “Me”, “You”, and “Us”.
The minutiae of Tarek’s life peppers the pages as he deals with patients, deliberates on his fate and struggles with the quotidian. His mother dies and we soon learn that there is someone out there who is clearly desperate to connect with him, using guile to create possible encounters. Part of the tension of the novel is built around this unknown person.
Homosexual relationship are still banned in Egypt and the author examines the cultural and societal implications of this fleeting relationship. It is a beautifully written, character-driven novel that has a rich feel of time as the story unfolds.
The setting is clearly (mainly) Cairo but a real sense of place, with all the sights, sounds and smells specific to Egypt, is good but perhaps a little thin.
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