© Migo Rollz. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2013 by Chip Rossetti. All rights reserved.
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© Migo Rollz. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2013 by Chip Rossetti. All rights reserved.
© Migo Rollz. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2013 by Chip Rossetti. All rights reserved.
Listen to pronunciations of the Egyptian Arabic terms in this story, read aloud by Noor Nagi.
(Listen on SoundCloud.)
Take a look inside the translation process for “The Last of the Bunch” by reading the first few pages of a draft from translator Chip Rossetti.
Browse through photos from a blog post on the train from Cairo to Alexandria. You’ll see the Misr Railway Station in Alexandria, which also appears in the story. Then, look at a photo of the sea view in Alexandria.
Read a list of Egyptian proverbs, including one on friendship that says “Go away for a while and you’ll be loved more.”
Mural, Egypt 2013, photographed by stttijn. License: CC by 2.0.
To learn more about Egypt’s history, read the BBC’s timeline of key events from 7000 BCE to 2018.
The comic artist and illustrator Migo Rolzz was born in 1988 in Egypt. He studied architecture and graphic design, and worked in design, post-production, and advertising. He lives in Southern California. His work has been published in TokTok magazine in Cairo, Egypt. See more of his work at www.migorolzz.com.
Chip Rossetti is a doctoral student in Arabic literature at the University of Pennsylvania. He has worked as an acquiring editor at a number of publishers, including Little, Brown, Basic, and the American University in Cairo Press, and is now the managing editor for the Library of Arabic Literature translation series at NYU Press. He has written for Saudi Aramco World, Fodor’s, and National Geographic’s travel guides to Morocco and Egypt. He has translated the novels Saint Theresa and Sleeping with Strangers by Bahaa Abdelmeguid (AUC Press) and Utopia by Ahmed Khaled Towfik (Bloomsbury Qatar), and won a PEN Translation Prize for his translation of a collection of short stories by the Egyptian writer Mohamad Makhzangi.
Look at drawings from Migo Rollz and then click through the pages of his other graphic story “The Beard and the Cover,” which is in Arabic, but possible to follow through the illustrations.
Then, watch the trailer for The Yacoubian Building, one of Migo Rollz’s favorite films.
(Watch the video on YouTube.)
Learn about modern Egypt by reading Chip Rossetti’s introduction to contemporary Egyptian literature on WWB Campus, and then read more of his work.
Interested in other comix from Egypt? If you know Arabic (or are interested in learning) try the Comix and Graphic Novels series on Khallina.org. It begins with the video below, which shows the magazine TokTok being created.
(Watch on YouTube.)
Read more graphic literature about the power of storytelling. Then, browse through the archive of Symbolia, an online magazine for illustrative journalism.
© Migo Rollz. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2013 by Chip Rossetti. All rights reserved.