Hunger

By Mohamed El-Bisatie Trans. by Denys Johnson-Davies

A stark account of humanity’s primary necessities and desires, Hunger is softened by El-Bisatie’s use of wry humour and happy-go-lucky outlook, despite the desolate story it tells.  

Hunger is a remarkably sincere portrayal of an ordinary Egyptian village family, plagued by poverty and lack of food.  In painting the individual portraits of the three breadwinners (Zaghlouol, his wife Sakeena and their son Zahir) episodically, El-Bisatie highlights the specific roles and desires of each character, and draws attention to their social surroundings.  

The story revolves around the hunger that is caused by the hand-to-mouth existence of Zaghlouol’s family.  Within this frame, El-Bisatie examines the conventional roles of husband and wife in Egyptian working class society and their expectations of one another.  Indeed, El-Bisatie symbolises their stereotypical nature by titling each episode of the novel “the husband”, “the wife” and “the son”.

Zaghlouol is a lazy, egocentric man resigned to live with what has been given to him.  Much to his wife’s despair, he makes hardly any effort to find employment and provide for his family.  When he does work it is at a local café, where he is much more interested in hearing stories about his friends’ sexual exploits than in serving customers.   

Eventually Zaghlouol finds a more bountiful employment, but even this turns out to be unreliable. Once it comes to an abrupt end, it is Sakeena who uses her initiative to resolve the family’s crisis.  But this is not a permanent solution either, and the family find themselves hungry and poor once again.  Who will be next to resolve the family crisis?  

This time it is Zaghlouol and Sakeena’s eldest son Zahir who comes to the family’s rescue, depicting not only his physical maturing but also his progress toward adult responsibilities. 

While the portrayal of physical hunger is at the forefront of the novel, El-Bisatie also analyses our universal appetite for love and physical intimacy, both in its base and more complex forms.  Running through the novel is Zaghlouol’s erotic desire, Sakeena’s submissive, but also loving, attitude to her husband, and Zahir’s sexual curiosity as he matures into adulthood.