A piercing portrait of the Egyptian nation in upheaval in the 1960s—and a powerful critique of progress made at a human cost.

In the summer of 1965, a journalist newly released from prison finds himself stranded at the sprawling site of the Aswan High Dam, the flagship project of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s modern Egypt. Amid oppressive heat, unreliable transport, a mysterious epidemic, and the oppressive gaze of state surveillance, he confronts a dramatic transformation underway: villages erased, communities displaced, and a rich past disappearing beneath the waters of a new lake. As the journalist journeys south along the Nile, his observations illuminate a key moment in Cold War politics and a society wrestling with the promises and perils of progress.

Originally published in Arabic in 1974, Star of August is a masterwork by Sonallah Ibrahim—a writer who lived through these upheavals firsthand—and a timeless exploration of ideology, power, and the price of change.

Sonallah Ibrahim was one of Egypt’s best-loved contemporary novelists. He spent five years in political prison from 1959 to 1964. His works available in English include The Committee, That Smell and Notes from Prison, Zaat, Stealth, and Beirut, Beirut. Anne Willborn is an Arabic-to-English literary translator based in San Francisco.

Translator’s Introduction
Star of August