The Yacoubian Building holds all that Egypt was and has become over the 75 years since its namesake was built on one of downtown Cairo's main boulevards. From the pious son of the building's doorkeeper and the raucous, impoverished squatters on its roof, via the tattered aristocrat and the gay intellectual in its apartments, to the ruthless businessman whose stores occupy its ground floor, each sharply etched character embodies a facet of modern Egypt -- where political corruption, ill-gotten wealth, and religious hypocrisy are natural allies, where the arrogance and defensiveness of the powerful find expression in the exploitation of the weak, where youthful idealism can turn quickly to extremism, and where an older, less violent vision of society may yet prevail.Alaa Al Aswany's novel caused an unprecedented stir when it was first published in 2002 and has remained the world's best selling novel in the Arabic language since.

亞拉．阿斯萬尼Alaa Al Aswany

1957年生於埃及，目前在開羅市中心擔任執業牙醫，《亞庫班公寓》是阿斯萬尼的第一本小說，2002年出版以來全球銷量超越100萬冊，作者因為本書躋身阿拉伯世界最暢銷作家之列，受邀至各地參加無數的書展和演講。

「亞庫班公寓」真實存在於開羅市中心，它也是阿斯萬尼第一間開業診所所在地，本書可謂一本極具寫實色彩的「地方小說」，人物和所處地方有著十分緊密的連動關係。阿斯萬尼從瞥見美國大使館某一棟破舊房屋的縱切面，以及尋找診所地點的經驗中得到繆斯，認為這些建築物表徵了開羅某一段年代，當時候的埃及人表現出開放與兼容並包的精神，一直到八０年代政權易主為止。

在埃及，阿斯萬尼是繼諾貝爾文學獎馬福茲（Naguib Mahfouz, 1911-2006）之後最受歡迎的作家。他喜愛接觸人群，開業的牙醫診所恰恰滋養了他的創作。他說：「文學是一種表述人性之愛的形式。」而且，「當人們牙疼的時候，需要的是一位牙醫，而不是作家。」

2007年阿斯萬尼第二本小說《芝加哥》阿拉伯、英、法語版先後出版，成為他第二本暢銷書。每天看診之餘，他在音樂的陪伴下花三個小時寫作，他只聆聽Edith Piaf（法國）和Oum Kalthoum（埃及）兩位女歌手的歌曲。