“Utopia” by Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq

This article is also available in: Italiano

“Utopia” will take you to an Egypt where the rich are isolated from the poor and have fun in macabre manhunts; Will humanity emerge or will it also fall prey to the mad and cruel soul of the world?

Utopia

A sad futuristic account of Egyptian society in the year 2023, Utopia takes readers on a chilling journey past the closed communities of the northern coast, where the wealthy are isolated from the desolation of life outside the walls. When a young man and girl run away from this bubble of well-being in order to see the lives of their poor Egyptians for themselves, they are faced with a world they had not imagined possible.

Utopia

Dystopian masterpiece

Utopia is the contemporary and Arabic answer to books like “1984” and “Fahrenheit 451”, transporting the reader into that atmosphere but adapting everything to our times and to the Egyptian historical and social reality. The author, in fact, does nothing but take a situation for centuries present in the land of the pharaohs, trying to imagine the extreme consequences. Within “Utopia”, in fact, the rich and the poor appear in fact as two real different “races”, so much so that precisely this concept will push the two young offspring to embark on their infamous journey.

The Worthy

At the beginning of the story we come to the knowledge of the fact that there is a new hobby increasingly popular among the wealthy: hunting for the poor. Disguising themselves as beggars, some of them go to the places where the poor people reside, killing them and taking home trophies such as arms, eyes and legs. Just this sadistic desire will push the 2 to start the journey, even if things will not go exactly as expected.

Journey to hell of the human psyche

In fact, the two will be quickly recognized by the vulgar who will be stopped only by the hand of Gaber, one of the protagonists of our history. The latter is a former professor who fell out of favor like most of the population and thus forced himself to struggle in the middle of a landfill and waste to try to survive him and his sister Safiya. Having come into contact with the 2 offspring, he will have mercy on him and will try in every way to bring them home, even at the cost of going against the entire population.

Utopia
The author Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq

At the end of the novel, we will discover how one of the two mentalities is destined to change profoundly, while that of the other, remaining firm in his brutal beliefs, will lead to the destruction of his own people. The characters are incredibly well written but, just to not spoil the surprise, it is better to stop here, you have to taste the book in first person to fully enjoy it; otherwise there is the podcast, available both in audio format (on Spotify and similar) and video (on Youtube). Thanks again to Barbara Benini for the incredible gift.

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