Book Review

Book review: Ghost stories Volume II: The Memoirs of a Psychiatrist ( حكايات الأشباح الجزء الثانى: يوميات طبيب نفسى) by Ola Barakat: Following her interesting, but hit and miss first collection of horror stories, Egyptian writer Ola Barakat delivers the goods with the second volume. Starting with the stylish and tremendously chilling interrelated stories The Memoirs of an insane woman and the title story, this collection takes the reader on a ride through the scary depths of Egyptian folklore and mythology, giving the stories a modern twist that makes them feel fresh.

With stories focusing on the Baron Palace, Djin, hauntings and insanity, this is a fine collection of Egyptian horror stories, written in Barakat's straightforward style, which makes it a quick and easy read, yet one filled with memorable imagery.

Can't wait for her to write a novel!

Book Review

Book Review: Pardon me and other fears (أعذرينى و مخاوف أخرى) : There seems to be a horror literature renaissance taking place in Egypt. With more and more horror titles coming out every month, it isn't an overstatement to say that Egyptian horror fiction is alive and well. Pardon me and other fears, a collection of horror short stories by up and coming Egyptian writers, is one of the best of these titles.

With more than a dozen writers contributing to this collection, the reader is exposed to a myriad of styles. Some of the stories contained here are good, some are mediocre, but, mostly, they are all interesting, and sometimes even superb.

From Shaimaa El Sioufy's title story about a painter haunted by the ghost of his dead wife, to Hanan Abdel Ghafar's Liberation, a disturbing tale about the deadly wrath of a woman scorned, to Abdel Aziz Abo El Mirath's hallucinatory Night tales, which is made up of seemingly unrelated nightmarish vignettes, to the closing tale, Ismail Khaled Wahdan's clever The monsters of our city, this collection covers almost all of the standard plot devices (monsters, ghosts, demons, vampires . . .) and then some.

If this is any indication of things to come, then Egyptian horror sure has a bright future ahead of it.