The Committee

Sonallah Ibrahim has been called the Egyptian Kafka. And no wonder: this wry tale revolves around its narratorÕs attempts to petition successfully the elusive ÒCommittee.Ó Consequences for his actions range from the absurd to the hideous.
In Kafkaesque fashionÑan intriguingly symbolic and minimalist styleÑIbrahim offers an unbroken first-person narrative rendered in brief, crisp prose framed by a conspicuous absence of vivid imagery. Furthermore, the petitioner is a man without identity. The ideal antihero, he remains unnamed throughout the intricate plot, with a locale suggestive of 1970s Cairo.
The Committee, first published in Arabic in 1981, sardonically pierces the inflammatory terrain between ordinary men, unbridled displays of power, and other broader concerns of the authorÕs native Egypt. The novelÕs corrosive, shocking conclusion catapults satiric surrealism into a new realm.