“Malaz” by Ahmad Salah al Mahdi is a post-apocalyptic Egyptian science fiction work that will take us to a country divided between a “Muslim” North and a “pagan” South Malaz. The city of rebirth In Egypt’s distant future, after a great war has led to the disintegration of civilization across the planet, humans turn to ancient, brutal methods and the worship of the old gods.

A young man takes on the responsibility of saving his city and the entire world from destruction. In this post-apocalyptic novel, whose atmosphere bears much in common with the famous Mad Max series, we find ourselves catapulted into future Egypt, after the collapse of modern civilization as we know it.

The climate is completely different, it’s cold even during the day, and everything is covered in clouds, remnants of a nuclear winter. The only safe place in the North is the city of Malaz, surrounded by high walls and protected by its warriors, the fearsome Sayyadin, the Hunters.

In Malaz lives Qasim, a nabbash, a street cleaner, who despite his poverty can read and write, and is also a skilled mechanic and self-taught metallurgist. Will young Qasim, the lone wolf, as everyone calls him, be able to save his city, his family, and his friends from the danger coming from the South?

Egyptian post-apocalyptic science fiction “Malaz: The City of Rebirth” is an Egyptian science fiction book that explores several dynamics closely tied to the country’s history, the most prominent of which is undoubtedly the division between a historically “more Arab and Muslim” North and a South more closely tied to sub-Saharan and pagan traditions; an element that in this work represents one of the novel’s central themes.

Another interesting element is the new relationship between humans and technology, an element already observed in other works, but which here ties in particularly well with the context of “Malaz” also because of the division seen above, with a South that, more eager than ever to achieve the glory of its past, will tend to demonize every machine or technological remnant, only to then completely change perspective. It didn’t take much Overall, “Malaz” manages to be an extremely enjoyable book in its 145 minutes, with which to spend some pleasant moments, but unfortunately it tends to be very simplistic in many of the solutions and decisions made by the various characters, making everything beautiful but a little flat.

What this novel lacks, in fact, isn’t so much content, but rather the climax that gets there and allows the reader to delve into the characters’ thoughts and minds—something very subtle yet allows for full immersion in the story. It’s a shame, because compared to a book like Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq’s “Utopia,” published by the same publisher, Malaz introduces many more typical and unique elements of Egyptian reality.

However, the climax of the two works is handled completely differently, as is the reader’s immersion in the characters. It’s a shame because it would have taken very little to really get to the top, but on the other hand I would be curious to see a series related to this work or the next work by Ahmed Salah al Mahdi because the potential is evident.

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