The Mountain of Green Tea

With poetic vividness, Yahya Taher Abdullah's "The Mountain of Green Tea" tells of the harsh life of the peasants of Upper Egypt, or of Cairo seen through the eyes of peasants who have migrated there in search of work. Few writers delve so subtly into a society that is strictly bounded by religious and social mores and rigid codes of behavior. It is a society whose members concern themselves with such basic matters as money and personal honor, and where death is ever-present to put an end to their futile endeavors.