The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution by Peter Hessler is a book with a tremendous span. Hessler, a writer for the New Yorker, moved with his family to Cairo in 2011. He was there to report on the Arab Spring; he mixes his up-close and personal account of the subsequent events in the city with visits to archaeological sites, flashbacks into the history of the ancient civilization, and stories of the people he befriended, from Sayyid, the man who collects the trash in the neighborhood, and his wife and family; to Manu, a translator who shared his experience as a gay man in a homophobic society; to the local who teaches Hessler and his wife Egyptian Arabic.
It’s a really incredible book. It’s impressive and indicative of Hessler’s skill that he can so artfully blend all these pieces of the story to create one coherent portrait of Egypt, its people, and the ways its history and its present blend and mirror each other. I have learned a tremendous amount about Egypt in these 480 pages, all through an intimate lens that introduces the reader to dozens of characters without allowing them to get muddled. I’m happy that I began my nonfiction marathon with this superb work.
