"I want to get married" is a perfectly normal thing to say for a young Egyptian man. But when a girl says it in such a conservative society - let alone writes a book with that title - she is making a political statement.
"Girls are not supposed to be actively seeking something, a girl simply exists for someone to marry or divorce her," says the author of the top-selling book, Ghada Abdelaal. "To say she wants something is seen as impolite."
The book started as a blog, before it was spotted by an Egyptian publisher and printed as a series of comic sketches in which flawed and failed suitors came knocking at her parents' door.
A paranoid policeman, a hirsute fundamentalist, a pathological liar and other hilarious caricatures are portrayed in sparkling Egyptian vernacular.
Karlijn
