Desiring Cairo

The sparky, funny sequel to Louisa Young’s acclaimed first novel of belly-dancing, motorbikes and single-parenthood.

Angeline Gower, ex-bellydancer, ex-biker, single mother of a little girl who is not actually her child, is mired in problems again in this wonderful sequel.

Her relationship with Harry, the lover turned cop, remains fraught, the lure of the glamorous but no good Eddie hasn’t gone away. And there is yet another element complicating things know – the seductive and mysterious Sa’id. With Angeline older and a little wiser, Louisa Young weaves a tale that is richer, sexier and more moving than ‘Baby Love’, while remaining just as exciting. Shifting between Shepherd’s Bush and Cairo, full of the contrasts between the West and the Middle East, ‘Desiring Cairo’ thrills and enthralls while at the same time making us think and feel deeply about the love between mother and child, man and woman, friend and friend.

Louisa Young has skilfully written this so that it is equally enjoyable read on its own, or as part of the trilogy that starts with ‘Baby Love’ and ends with ‘Tree of Pearls’.

Reviews

‘A romantic hymn to the struggle of being independent…It is the compulsive quality of this writing that gives Louisa Young’s books such wide appeal.’ The Times

‘Funny and scary…with a memorable David Lynch-style take on Shepherd’s Bush…in writing honestly and unsentimentally, Young celebrates the unequivocal nature of parental love with verve and style.’ Julie Myerson, Mail on Sunday

‘As well as being compelling and witty, “Desiring Cairo” is immensely touching, leaving haunting traces across the reader’s heart and mind…Majestic.’ Big Issue

About the author

Louisa Young was a journalist for some years. Her first book was A Great Task of Happiness (1995), the life of Kathleen Bruce, her grandmother, the sculptor and wife of Scott of the Antarctic. She followed that with her Egyptian trilogy of novels: Baby Love (which was listed for the Orange Prize), Desiring Cairo and Tree of Pearls. They were followed by The Book of the Heart, a cultural history of our most symbolic organ. The first volume of her children's trilogy, Lionboy, written with her ten-year-old daughter under the pseudonym Zizou Corder, is coming out in October 2003. It is to be published in 25 languages, and the film rights have been sold to Dreamworks.

She lives in London with her daughter.