The Housekeeper and the Professor.....

This is a gem of a book which pakdokter read recently. Just like most things 'Japanese', be it food or design or architecture, this book is characterised by its 'simplicity' and 'minimalism'. There are only 3 main characters so one does not get 'lost' in the many personalities of stories written by many other authors. It revolves around the evolving relationship between the Cambridge-trained Mathematics professor who sufferred brain injury from an accident resulting in a memory span that lasts only 80 minutes a day and the housekeeper engaged by the professor's sister-in-law to look after him who introduced into the relationship her own school-going illegitimate son.

The English translation (from its original Japanese version) was simple to read ( perhaps reflective of its original Japanese form) and even some of the mathematical concepts were easy to understand. The chapters of the book were all short and could be read within a short time, but the beauty of each of them made pakdokter read it slowly and repeatedly, just like in childhood when pakdokter would eat and lick the ice-cream a little at a time to make it last longer...

Hopefully our 'National Translation Agency' will look at this book and translate it into our 'National Language' so that our kids will have quality books to read other than the usual 'trash'....

Khaled al Khamissi, Egyptian writer, journalist, film director and producer studied political science at Cairo University and at the Sorbonne in Paris. This book was a bestseller in the Arabic markets and Zaid Ibrahim Publications managed to get the rights to its English translation for markets in this region.

Although, the quality of the English translation is not that inspiring, pakdokter would recommend this book simply for the stories that came out of conversations with the cabbies of Cairo. One gets a good 'feel' of the 'politics' of Egypt and pakdokter can relate to the 'personality' of the 'Egyptian' from pakdokter's past contacts with them during pakdokter's visits to that country.

Reading the book, pakdokter became worried and prayed to God that our 'beloved country' will not degenerate to the situation as depicted in this book....