Egyptian Animal Farm

About the Book

This is a story about rulers and the ruled, oppressors and oppressed, and the betrayal of an ideal. In this adaptation of George Orwell's novel Animal Farm, we encounter a type of totalitarian rule that arises in a society that is different from the one in which Orwell lived and wrote about. Although tge author has created a new cultural context and charted a somewhat different course of events on the farm, we find that the author uses the same factors that Orwell depended on to portray the course of events on Animal Farm: absolute power, police brutality, social stratification, propaganda as an instrument of control and naivety of the working class.

In this story the animals on an Arabic Animal Farm rebel, taking over the farm and expelling their oppressive lord. The animals set out to establish a utopian society whose legitimacy is based on the belief in a metaphysical doctrine and laws that are embodied in a set of principals summarized by their leaders as the "Ten Commandments". In the beginning, the animals happily and enthusiastically embrace this new way of life that appeals to their emotions, matches their simple nature and seems to be the only way to acheive their hopes and dreams. Gradually, it came to be accepted that the leaders of a farm, who were manifestly more clever, ended up deciding all matters on the farm, including the meaning of the ten commandments. Will the fate of the animals on the Egyptian Animal Farm be different from the fate of the animals in the original?

About the Author

Mohamad Gabalawi was born in a suburb of Cairo, Egypt in 1959. After graduating from the University of Cairo, he travelled to the United States where he received an M.Sc. abd a Ph.D in Microbiology and Immunology. He then moved to Canada where he carried out post-doctoral research at the University of Saskatchewan and met his lovely wife Brenda. Mohamad and Brenda have one son (Alexander Shareef Morsey). Mohamad is currently a Senior Research Investigator at one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.