In An Antique Land

by Amitav Ghosh, Vintage Press: 1994

amazon.com $11.20

Reviewed by Alexandra Ceely

I bought this book because I am interested in history, particularly the history of Medieval Egypt which I know nothing about. The book is about Mr.Gosh’s attempts to find out more about an Indian slave mentioned by a Jewish/Egyptian merchant in some 12th century manuscripts. Hmm, that sounds too esoteric to pass up, I thought.

But, while Mr.Gosh does describe his detective work concerning this slave, I found myself much more interested in his personal story of his stay in the small agricultural villages in Egypt while working on his doctorate in social anthropology in the 1980's. I became enthralled with his descriptions of the people he met and befriended, of his interactions with them, of their beliefs and everyday lives. History buff though I am, the lives and adventures of the Jewish merchant and his Indian slave took a backseat to the modern day Egyptians.

This is an engaging book that I would recommend to those of us who enjoy learning about other cultures. I found it especially so because I am living in Egypt myself, and find myself surrounded by a culture wholly alien to that of middle-class America. I see glimpses of this culture on the streets, but there is a barrier that most Americans cannot get past. I begin to see a little more when I watch Egyptian TV, but it isn¹t until I find a particularly insightful book like In An Antique Land that I really begin to understand just a tiny bit how the Egyptian people think, and how their view of life differs so much from the way Americans view life.