The Cursed Cave

About this book

In the 1920s, as Alexandria began to don the garb of European modernity and throb with a life different from the depths of the Egyptian countryside, the young Upper Egyptian Herdi finds himself drawn into the maze of the big city. Herdi did not come merely in search of wealth, but fleeing the traditions of his village that nearly pushed him into an unwanted marriage to his cousin Sonia. Herdi believed that distancing himself from his roots was the beginning of his freedom, and that blending with his new friends—like Andrea, aspiring to a liberated life—would give him a chance to shed his old skin. But every shedding has a price, and as the writer says: when a snake sheds its skin, a new skin grows, but when a man sheds his skin, he turns into a ghost. Herdi soon discovers that this separation from his past is not easy, and that the cursed shadows he left behind began chasing him through the noisy streets of Alexandria. On a dark night, a hidden voice wakes him to the truth of Sonia's death, manifesting to him as a ghost chasing him in his waking and his sleep. Is what Herdi sees merely hallucinations from the pressure of the past and the new reality? Or is there more to the curse of the cursed cave?