Animals in Our Days

Each story in Mohamed Makhzangis unique collection Animals in Our Days features a different animal species and its fraught relationship with humanswater buffalo in a rural village gone mad from electric lights, brass grasshoppers purchased in a crowded Bangkok market, or ghostly rabbits that haunt the site of a long-ago brutal military crackdown. Other stories tell of bear-trainers in India and of the American invasion of Iraq as experienced by a foal, deer, and puppies. Originally published in 2006, Makhzangis stories are part of a long tradition of writings on animals in Arabic literature. In this collection, animals offer a mute testament to the brutality and callousness of humanity, particularly when modernity sunders humans from the natural environment. Makhzangi is one of Egypts most perceptive and nuanced authors, merging a writers empathy with a scientists curiosity about the world. Like Barbara Kingsolvers Flight Behavior, Haruki Murakamis The Elephant Vanishes, or J. M. Coetzees Lives of Animals, Makhzangis stories trace the numinous, almost supernatural, connections between our species and others. In these resonant, haunting tales, Animals in Our Days foregrounds our urgent need to reacquire the sense of awe, humility, and respect that once characterized our relationship with animals.