Cairo Magazine, Egypt
June 10 2005
Inside the Yacoubian building
There is such a thing as bad publicity
By Ursula Lindsey
Photo: Nichan Yacoubian built the apartment building that bears his
name on Talaat Harb St. in the 1930s.
Ahmed Hosni
When the Egyptian-Armenian businessman Nichan Yacoubian built an
apartment building on Talaat Harb Street in the 1930s, he could never
have guessed its future. He could not have predicted how his son
Dikran would emigrate to Geneva after his death, leaving the building
in the charge of several superintendents, how his own ground-floor
store would become the bright Wanan shirt shop, or how the simple Art
Deco façade would grow spotted with air-conditioning units and
billboards, blending into Downtown’s busy commercial scenery. Nor
could he have envisaged that `The Yacoubian Building’ would one day
be a name famous and familiar across the city, much to the chagrin of
its residents.
Alaa Al Aswany’s best-selling novel Amarat Al Yacoubian (The
Yacoubian Building) (Merit, 2002) is on its sixth edition in Arabic,
has been translated to English (AUC Press, 2004) and will soon be
published and distributed in the United States by HarperCollins. More
importantly, the film based on the book – a US$3 million
mega-production starring Adel Imam, Nour Al Sherif and Youssra – has
reportedly just finished filming, and should be out by the beginning
of 2006.
For the actual residents of the Yacoubian, all this translates into
much unwanted attention. The novel’s blunt depiction of the sexual
and financial exploitation to which its characters subject each other
reflects badly on its real-life counterparts, they say.
`People call it the building of homosexuality, of prostitution,’ says
Edward Kamil, one of the building’s administrators. `Not the
Yacoubian building. There are characters in the book who have the
same name as real people. It’s a novel but it deals with real people
and a real place.’
This is the argument of the sons of late Yacoubian resident Malak
Khela, who are suing Al Aswany for LE2 million for allegedly
depticing their father as as a ruthless schemer and a smuggler of
liquor and currency. The brothers say two characters in the novel
share the same names, professions and physical traits as their father
and uncle.
Building superintendent Fikry Abdel Malek is also taking legal action
against Al Aswany, as well as against the film production company of
`The Yacoubian Building’ and screenwriter Waheed Hamid. Hamid is in
turn threatening to sue his accusers, saying they are defaming him.
With so much acrimony in the air, it’s little surprise that the film
crew of the Yacoubian movie (produced by Emad Adib’s Good News Films)
were not allowed to film on location, and were obliged to adjourn
next door to 32 Talaat Harb Street. There, they employed the bawwab
in a small role as a policeman, and offered him and his family the
amusing sight of superstars such as Hind Sabri posing as a baladi
girl and washing laundry for the cameras.
Al Aswany, who had a dentistry practice in the building in the 1990s
and shared a flat with the late Malak Khela and another professional,
dismisses the claims. He says his is a work of fiction and that any
similarities are purely coincidental.
The name of the building – written in lovely elongated green letters
across the threshold of the building’s lobby – captivated him, and he
decided to use it as the title of his work, which he had originally
thought of calling simply Downtown. `The name was only thing I picked
up from the building,’ says the writer, `the characters in the novel
have nothing to do with the building’s inhabitants.’ Al Aswany has
cast doubt on his accusers’ motivations, saying they only became
interested in the book three years after its publication, when news
of the film’s budget was printed in the press.
As far as the work’s supposedly scabrous subjects, Al Aswany says, `I
believe literature must discuss what people don’t discuss.’
But residents of the Yacoubian building would rather the writer had
set his discussion elsewhere. From the top to the bottom of the
building, inhabitants seem to be united in their anger at Al Aswany.
`Everything he wrote is lies,’ doorman Muhammed will tell you from
his bench in the lobby. `What Al Aswany said in his novel is not true
and defames our reputation,’ rooftop resident Said argues heatedly.
`If I saw him, I don’t know what I might do with him.’
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