Set on the eve of the January 1977 bread riots against IMF austerity programs and privatization that nearly brought down President Anwar Sadat, "The Heron" catches Egypt in the mid-stream of its modern history, as seen through the prism of a long winter night in the Cairo neighborhood of Kit Kat. Since it first appeared in 1984, Ibrahim Aslan's "The Heron" has been a classic of modern Arabic literature and was the basis of the film Kit Kat.

Translated by: Elliot Colla