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شقة الحرية

شقة الحرية

Historical FictionLiterary Fiction
Pages
463
Published
1994
Language
Arabic

Synopsis

Published in 1994, Ghazi Algosaibi's An Apartment Called Freedom (شقة الحرية) opens in August 1956, when sixteen-year-old Fouad al-Taraf leaves Bahrain for Cairo to study law. There he shares an apartment with three fellow Bahrainis — Qasim, Abdul Karim, and Yacoub — and the four young men's lives unfold against the ideological ferment of Nasser-era Egypt, spanning the charged period of Arab history between 1948 and 1967: Arab nationalism, Ba'athism, the Muslim Brotherhood, and communism all pass through their arguments, loves, and searches for identity. A landmark of Saudi literature — the first Saudi novel to take on political ideology, exile, and sexuality directly — it was banned in Saudi Arabia for years before being allowed back into print.

Prose complexity
7/10

Vibe

Thought-ProvokingPhilosophicalReflectiveIntellectual
Coming of Age

Genres

Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Politics

About the author

G
Ghazi A. Algosaibi

Ghazi Abdul Rahman Al Gosaibi (1940–2010) was a Saudi Arabian diplomat, politician, poet, and novelist. Over a five-decade public career he served as Saudi Arabia's first Minister of Industry and Electricity, Minister of Health, Ambassador to Bahrain and to the United Kingdom, Minister of Water and Electricity, and Minister of Labor. Alongside his government career he published dozens of works of poetry, fiction, and essays, and is best known for the novel An Apartment Called Freedom (1994), abo...

Characters

Abbas Mahmoud al-AqqadCameo
Naguib MahfouzCameo
Anis MansourCameo
All characters in شقة الحرية

Frequently asked questions

  • Is An Apartment Called Freedom based on a true story?

    The novel is fiction, not a memoir, but it draws on Ghazi Algosaibi's own experience as a young Bahraini who studied law in Cairo in the 1950s. The book's real-world texture — Nasser-era Egypt, appearances by literary figures such as Naguib Mahfouz, Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad, and Anis Mansour — reflects the milieu Algosaibi himself moved through as a student, though the apartment and its four housemates are a fictionalized composite rather than a direct record of real people.

  • Why was An Apartment Called Freedom banned in Saudi Arabia?

    First published in 1994, the novel was barred from sale in Saudi Arabia for years because of its direct treatment of political ideology, exile, and sexuality — subjects a Saudi novel had not confronted so openly before. It is regarded as a landmark of Saudi literature for that reason, and the ban was eventually lifted, allowing the book back into print in the kingdom.