Live from Cairo

May 29, 2017
Bassingthwaighte’s expansive first novel plunges straight into the heart of Cairo in the throes of the Arab Spring of 2011. Told from multiple perspectives, this searing tale follows several well-meaning, but perhaps unequipped, young people as they try to forge a path to freedom for Dalia, an Iraqi refugee separated from her husband, who is waiting for her in Boston. Hana, an Iraqi-American resettlement officer, first denies Dalia’s application to leave Egypt, citing strict rules, in spite of her awareness of Dalia’s harrowing experiences of rape and torture. Charlie, Dalia’s American attorney, who is passionate about Dalia’s case and overwhelmed by the existential futility of his job, convinces his earnest Egyptian translator, Aos, and eventually the skeptical Hana that they should go to whatever lengths necessary to see to it that this deserving refugee finds relief and happiness. But Cairo is a volatile, dangerous place, the streets full of protestors and vicious policemen, and Charlie’s plan spirals out of control. The author paints a deep and empathetic picture of the inner struggles of his courageous, flawed characters, who in the midst of mortal danger and insurmountable odds, grapple with the most fundamental questions of right and wrong. The answers follow neither rules nor laws, making the climax to this novel breathtaking and heartrending.

Starred review from May 1, 2017
This brilliantly conceived and artfully detailed novel set in the Egyptian immigration bureaucracy is both a comedy and tragedy of errors."Welcome to Egypt!...Everything was invented here. Poetry, science, math. The calendar, the plow." With this greeting, Cairo taxi driver Mustafa ushers Hana, an Iraqi-American who has arrived for a job with the U.N. refugee office, into his cab for the first of many wild rides. (After she accidentally damages his car, they are bonded for life.) One of Hana's first cases is that of an Iraqi named Dalia, the wife of a man who helped rebuild water mains for the Americans in Baghdad until violent retaliation engulfed them both. Only he was given asylum in the U.S.; she's now trying to join him but is too reserved to confess the details which qualify her for relocation. "A single-file queue almost a million people long appeared in Hana's mind. Dalia was an invisible dot in the distance, with no chance whatsoever of leaving Egypt." What Hana doesn't yet know is that Dalia's immigration lawyer, an American named Charlie, is in love with his client and is about to cook up a crazy plan to help her outwit the system. The unfolding scheme also drags in Aos, Charlie's translator and only friend, a young man who joins the nightly protests against the government in Tahrir Square. There are far too many great things about this book to list in this small space: the tension and energy of the plot; the tragic back stories of Charlie and Hana; the vignettes of Dalia's husband in Boston; the richness and subtlety of detail in the writing. In one scene, Charlie and Aos are sitting in a Lebanese cafe. Aos is bursting to explain to Charlie everything that's wrong with his plan but can't bring himself to speak. Meanwhile, a patron who is smoking demands coals for his shisha, already piled high. "Aos's heart sank to witness reason's failing: the headwaiter stacking hot coals on top of hot coals. Only his delicate and ingenious positioning saved the tower from collapse." The ironies of bureaucracy and wartime, a la Catch-22, meet the ironies of love and sacrifice, a la The Necklace, profoundly humanizing the global refugee crisis. Bassingthwaighte's virtuoso debut deserves the widest attention.

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March 1, 2017
A Hopwood Award winner and finalist for the Daniel Pearl Investigative Journalism Initiative, Fulbright grantee Bassingthwaighte worked in Egypt in 2009 to help refugees from Iraq, Sudan, and the Horn of Africa. Here he chronicles four people caught in Cairo during the crash of President Mubarak's regime.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2017
Bassingthwaighte's debut features Dalia and her husband, Omran, who was granted asylum in the U.S. for helping the Americans during the Iraq War. Their traditional, tribal marriage offers no proof authorities will accept, so Dalia is trapped in Egypt, without resources and separated from the man she loves. With coaching from lawyer Charlie, who's secretly in love with her, Dalia works to convince Iraqi American resettlement officer Hana that her story is more urgent, desperate, horrifying, and exigent than those of thousands of others. She doesn't. Yet Charlie and Hana have their own complicated motives to help Dalia leave Cairo, itself rising as a character in the novel, roiling in the aftermath of 2011's political revolution. The government, concerned with planting grass, causes despair, and the streets are game boards for Frogger. This novel shows readers a painful, absurdist refugee experience through a kaleidoscopic lens. Best of all, Bassignthwaighte, a Fulbright grantee to Egypt, allows his characters to be human. The emotional intelligence on display and the author's use of language set this novel apart.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)