Peter Hessler is one of the finest storytellers of his generation. The beauty of his writing is subtle and cumulative—it gets under your skin. After his years in China, Hessler moved with his family to Cairo during the electric, chaotic days of protests in Tahrir Square. Through him, you come to know many Egyptians as he came to know them—casually, intimately, forming deepening ties. And through them you experience Egypt’s turbulent recent history as it was happening, as it felt to live through it.
Larissa MacFarquhar is author of Strangers Drowning: Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge to Help.
The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution by Peter Hessler will be published on May 7th by Penguin Press in North America, Profile Books in the United Kingdom, and Text Publishing in Australia and New Zealand.
Other praise and reviews: Kirkus, Paul Theroux