The Shatranj Web

Egypt is a place where the present tends to run in crosscurrents with the great river of its long past. The turbulence is experienced by the protagonist as they stand across widely spread points of intersecting in Canada Egypt and the Sudan. But the contrast is not only geographic; it comes with extreme differences in cultural values. Through their distinctive personalities , the reader gets to glimpses into the conflicting state of mind of bi-national citizens, feel the intensity of multifaith relationships and the tight bonding holding together distinctive social classes, in an ancient lands inhabited by modern protagonists. The story is set in and around the home of a University professor Dr. Doreya Abboud who lives in Cairo with her daughter Rasha, a graduate in journalism. They belong to the educated Coptic minority in Egypt. Together with Farida their maid and her own daughter Suha, they constitute a solidarity network which also include Alain, a French Catholic priest and close family friend. When Alain feels unable to repress his desire to belong to the family, he requests a transfer from his cosmopolitan parish in Cairo to a mission in Aswan. Isolated and lonely, he begins to question his commitment to the Church and immerses himself in humanitarian work with Nubian peasants as well as Africans refugee. It is in Aswan that he meets Duchesne a French Canadian sculptor who came to Egypt to purchase stones for his monumental sculptures commissions, and Dr. Hennessy, an American scientist involved in a campaign to control an outbreak of Hepatitis C. Their friendship, and Alain's desire to experience the same freedom of action they display, convinces him to leave the Church. Deprived of his institutional protection and at the mercy of unpredictable events, he and a Muslim woman Tahani, his newly found love, are murdered in the Sudan, victims of an honor killing.