Table Of ContentWINNER OF THE
NAGUIB MAHFOUZ MEDAL
FEBRUARY 1946: FOR LITERATURE
Cairo is engulfed by demonstrations against the British.
Layla’s older brother Mahmud returns, wounded in the
clashes, and the events of that fateful day mark a turning
point in her life, an awakening to the world around her.
The Open Door follows Layla through her sexual and
political coming of age. Her rebellious spirit seeks to free
itself from the stifling social codes that dictate a young
woman’s life, just as Egypt struggles to shake
off imperialist rule.
This classic, acclaimed novel is a landmark
in feminist, anti-colonialist writing.
“Latifa al-Zayyat greatly helped
all of us Egyptian writers.”
NAGUIB MAHFOUZ
ISBN: 978-977-416-827-7
9 789774 168277
Cover design: www.emmagraves.co.uk
Images: Shutterstock
1.011
Zayyat final ornaments_Final_Zayyat final ornaments.qxd 10/27/16 10:36 PM Page i
Latifa al-Zayyat (1923–96) struggled all her life to uphold just
causes—national integrity, the welfare of the poor, human rights,
freedom of expression, and the rejection of all forms of imperialist
hegemony. As a professor of English literature at Ain Shams
University, her critical output was no less prolific than her creative
writing, but the creative, academic, and political strands of her
personality were interwoven.
The Open Door is generally recognized as al-Zayyat’s magnum
opus and was awarded the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature
in 1996.
Marilyn Booth has translated works by Hoda Barakat, Nawal El
Saadawi, Hassan Daoud, and many other Arab writers. She is
Khalid bin Abdullah Al Saud Professor in the Study of the
Contemporary Arab World in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at
Oxford University.
Zayyat final ornaments_Final_Zayyat final ornaments.qxd 10/27/16 10:36 PM Page ii
Zayyat final ornaments_Final_Zayyat final ornaments.qxd 10/27/16 10:36 PM Page iii
The Open Door
Latifa al-Zayyat
Translated by
Marilyn Booth
Zayyat final ornaments_Final_Zayyat final ornaments.qxd 10/27/16 10:36 PM Page iv
This edition published
in 2017 by
Hoopoe
113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt
420 Fifth Avenue, New York, 10018
www.hoopoefiction.com
Hoopoe is an imprint of the American University in Cairo Press
www.aucpress.com
Copyright © 1960 by the Estate of Latifa al-Zayyat
First published in Arabic in 1960 as al-Bab al-maftuh
Protected under the Berne Convention
English translation copyright © 2000 by the American University in Cairo Press
Translator’s essay “About The Open Door” copyright © 2000 by Marilyn Booth
First published in hardback in 2000 by the American University in Cairo Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechani-
cal, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of
the publisher.
Exclusive distribution outside Egypt and North America by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd.,
6 Salem Road, London, W4 2BU
Dar el Kutub No. 14351/16
ISBN 978 977 416 827 7
Dar el Kutub Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Al-Zayyat, Latifa
The Open Door / Latifa al-Zayyat.—Cairo: The American University
in Cairo Press, 2017.
p. cm.
ISBN 978 977 416 827 7
1. Arabic Fiction — Translation into English
892.73
1 2 3 4 5 21 20 19 18 17
Designed by Adam el-Sehemy
Printed in the United States of America
Zayyat final ornaments_Final_Zayyat final ornaments.qxd 10/27/16 10:36 PM Page v
To my teacher, Rashad Rushdi
Zayyat final ornaments_Final_Zayyat final ornaments.qxd 10/27/16 10:36 PM Page vi
Zayyat final ornaments_Final_Zayyat final ornaments.qxd 10/27/16 10:36 PM Page 1
Chapter One
FEBRUARY 21, 1946. SEVEN O’CLOCK in the evening: the tran-
quil sky bore a pleasant coolness, and there was a clean purity
to the air as if the heavens had poured down rain and washed
the earth. Yet Cairo was not its normal, brightly lit self; its main
streets were not choked with the usual crowds streaming
through the cinema houses, shops, and cafes, or congregating at
bus and tramway stops. The cinema houses were on strike, and
so were other businesses, and no buses or trams were running.
Police cars and vans slunk along streets packed with rifle-bear-
ing soldiers. The few civilians in sight walked slowly in the
streets or stood at intersections, knots of two, three, or four
engaged in conversation. One could hear all sorts of dialects
and levels of education in their speech, but every exchange
turned upon the same subject, that morning’s events in
Ismailiya Square.
“That clash was no coincidence, no sir! They meant to pro-
voke people. A demonstration of forty thousand folks, a big show
of protest against the English, that’s what people came out for—
and what happens? Those English bring out five armored cars to
plow into it!”
“Don’t forget we Egyptians are brave—a country of tough
guys. The tank crushed the lad and right away the students raised
his shirt high to show everyone; there was blood all over it. Then
the crowd just went mad. They attacked the English tanks and
pulled ’em apart, and then they started throwing their bodies
1
Zayyat final ornaments_Final_Zayyat final ornaments.qxd 10/27/16 10:36 PM Page 2
right on the guns—why, you’d have thought they were made of
sugar for all the people swarming around them.”
“Now, personally, I consider this demonstration a new stage
in our national struggle. First: this was a direct clash with the
English. Second: the army refused to break up the demonstra-
tion. Not only that—our army vehicles were moving through the
city plastered with nationalist slogans!”
“Then there’s the way the workers joined the students. And
everybody—all the Egyptian people.”
“I’m telling you, this is a nation of toughies—even the
women came out of their houses. There were women all over the
place in Bab al-Sha‘riya.”
“Let’s get to the point—and that’s the weapons. The bullets
were coming thick and fast from the army posts. The people
were unarmed. If only they had had guns!”
“Fine, but did you see all of those bricks, raining down on the
English? Brother, I couldn’t believe it! Where’d folks come up
with so many bricks?”
“Yes, and how about when they set fire to those barricades
the English were trying to hide themselves behind?”
“Those boys were ripping off their gallabiyas, soaking them
in gas, and setting fire to them. They were totally in flames,
might eat up a guy’s whole body, but what did they care? They
would just crawl along, bullets pouring down like rain, paying no
attention, no sir, went on moving, right to the attack....”
“This wasn’t simply an anti-English thing today. No, people
were attacking the English andthe king, and agents of imperial-
ism in general. And I say this is a new stage of national con-
sciousness, that’s my own personal view of the situation.”
“Well, me—even if I live to be a hundred I won’t ever forget
that scene in Sulayman Pasha Street. No, sir.”
“Badges, badges of blood! The blood of those who died,
those who were wounded, all for Egypt’s sake. Twenty-three
dead, and 122 injured.”
*
2
Zayyat final ornaments_Final_Zayyat final ornaments.qxd 10/27/16 10:36 PM Page 3
For those talking excitedly on the street the battle had ended.
Final gains and losses had been tallied. But the battle had not yet
ended, nor had any sums been figured, for the family of
Muhammad Effendi Sulayman, civil servant in the Ministry of
Finance and resident of No.3 Ya‘qub Street in the neighborhood
of Sayyida Zaynab.
In the apartment’s large entrance hall, which served the fam-
ily as an everyday living room, sat Sulayman Effendi himself.
Ensconced in a cushioned wooden armchair facing the front
door, he was repeating verses from the Qur’an in an undertone,
stopping from time to time to listen hard whenever footsteps
sounded on the stairs. As they came closer he would train his
gray eyes on the door, his face set severely. But invariably the
footsteps continued on, right past the door, up the stairs to the
floors above. At that, his shoulders would slump and his sallow
complexion would go even paler, giving more prominence to the
patches of reddened skin on his face. Eventually he would
resume his murmured repetition of verses from the Holy Book.
In the formal sitting room that adjoined the front hall,
Sulayman Effendi’s wife stood at the window. She was not a tall
woman, but her full figure and light skin were attractive. At the
moment the upper half of that compact body hung so far out of
the window that she seemed almost to dangle. All her fiber was
telescoped into her small, hazel eyes, flitting right and left, star-
ing into the distance as if they could almost of their own accord
pierce the dimness of the evening street.
In front of the round table that graced the center of the sit-
ting room stood eleven-year-old Layla, a robust girl with skin
darker than her mother’s. She was fiddling with a wooden ciga-
rette box, her motions mechanical, her bright eyes gazing into
the distance, at nothing in particular. With a final, sharp tap to
the lid of the cigarette box, she marched into the living room,
passing her seated father as she headed straight for the front
door. She reached for the sliding bolt. Her father’s lips trembled,
his face going even whiter as he raised eyes so faded they might
3
