Seven Years in the Sun by Rhoda Gorden Amine

Seven Years in the Sun by Rhoda Gordan Amine (1959)
Read: September 2008

This is a memoire written by an English woman who married an Egyptian in the 1950’s. It is an interesting account of Egyptian life and culture from her perspective at the time of Nasser and the Suez crisis. We were given this book by Uncle Roy who had found this book in the place that Jim and Roy normally find books J He said he thought it looked interesting and he was right. It is a first edition hardback (but actually there never was a second edition as far as I can tell) and the dust jacket is very much frayed, torn and worn (i.e. doing the job of a good dust jacket).

Seven Years in the Sun is an autobiography covering Amine’s life as an Englishwoman who marries an Egyptian and lives in Cairo in the 1950’s. The book starts as her adventure starts; when she leaves England for Cairo in 1950 and the book closes when she “sailed out of Alexandria harbour” in 1957. In the introduction, Amine comments that she had always wanted to write a book about her life in Egypt, but that whilst living there she had neither the “leisure nor the detachment” to do so. I can sympathise with her position here in terms of the leisure time required to write, but I feel differently about her point on detachment which I will explore more later.

Amine grew up in China, because of her father’s job, but returned to England when she was 16 years old. She suggests that her many trips through the Suez Canal as she travelled between England and China on home leave gave her a desire to visit the Pyramids, and when she returned to England after her schooling, she structured her further study around making this dream a reality.

Amine lands employment working at a British/English School in Cairo, although most of the pupils are Egyptian. If this sounds familiar, it was doubling reassuring to have one of the teachers describe a student as follows “She speaks in three languages, but thinks in none!”


What I enjoyed about reading this book, was that despite it describing life and experiences in Egypt and Cairo 50 years ago, the stories she tells about the culture here still resonate. I read this book when we had only been here a few weeks and I found it so reassuring to be reading about a Westerner’s difficulty with fitting in to the culture here.

Alongside the narrative of her family life, she gradually introduces Arabic words and customs. I enjoyed this structure because you don’t find out about the culture and language in one go, but it is a gradual process – that really is never-ending! She mentions baksheesh, and that despite people being very poor here, they are still proud. Other words she introduced me too included “itfaddal” which literally means “take your pleasure” but conveys more a feeling of “tuck in” or “join us” for a meal.

Despite being an Englishwoman, Amine’s story soon turns into that of an Egyptian wife. Even the way she meets her husband-to-be is more Egyptian, than English, which may be unsurprising considering this is the culture that is all around her, but I did find it surprising as she is a very strong willed person, who doesn’t lose or shy away from, at first at least, her British identity. The almost arranged marriage and the husband-to-be’s honest desire to “marry an English woman” therefore come as a surprise. Once she marries Osman though, in 1953, she becomes fully integrated into Egyptian life and culture.

It is through her marriage though, that I think Amine achieved what she really wanted, to understand another culture and live the exotic life. And it is through this marriage that we not only meet an Egyptian man, her husband, but his family, family life and true day-to-day life in Egypt. Amine comes to know her husbands sisters, mother and brothers’ wives very well, as she becomes integrated into the role of a woman in a traditional Egyptian household. We get to see the delicate dance that families perform when a marriage is arranged, and when it fails. We also get to see her frustrations at having achieved so much in her education and life experience (having taken herself through university and lived in three different continents) yet then finding herself in a role she feels so limiting. It is not that she is fulfilling the role of wife and mother that she finds constraining, but the family and structures around her that dictate her moves.

The third part of the book looks at Islam, which was all the more interesting to me and as I was reading this during Ramadan. The phrases and beliefs she translates are now part of our everyday life “Allah Akhbah” God is Great “Iftar” the breaking of the fast “Humdu lillah” Praise God! This Chapter also explained the initially extravagant need for every apartment we had visited to have two living rooms. As we mentioned on our blog, when we arrived in Cairo we were surprised to find an additional living room at the back of the apartment – as were friends in their apartments. Amine explains that although the standing of women in cities is much more advanced than that in small towns, the women of the household would still retire to this separate, private, living room should a male guest arrive alone. She also adds that “Cairo flats are generally so planned that guests can be received without penetrating far into the home” and once reading this I always notice that the door to an apartment opens into the living room space, with the kitchen close by, and often there is an arch where a modesty curtain could be hung.

For me the experience and language that stands out the most in this book, is when Amine recalls the regularity that she is called “Ya Khawaga!” a phrase which although comes from the Turkish for Mister, is used as a form of address for any foreigner in Egypt. From her description though it seems that although this is a formal, polite address, by its vary nature it marks out the recipient as different, as a foreigner. This word seems to follow her around her life in Cairo, despite her integration into family and Egyptian life. Although she learns to not become upset at being called a Khawga, her Egyptian husband takes offence and no protestations by either of them that they are Muslim, that she lives in Egypt, speaks the language and is of one blood will reduce the frequency of the address. Although this is one of the words that regularly marks her time in Cairo, it is not one that I am yet familiar with – maybe it has gone out of fashion as a phrase, or maybe everyone is so used to Westerners in the Cairo suburb where I live that it doesn’t serve a purpose. We think we did hear it once, when exploring the streets behind a traditional market near the Metro; there were some children playing football who called out to us from the maze of streets – streets deemed so unimportant and undesirable that they are not on any map – so maybe it is still used, be we just don’t often find ourselves in places where we could be a Khawga.

The book closes as the Suez Crisis takes hold and Amine finds her position as a Khawga in Cairo and in Egypt untenable. This was the first book that I read that refers to the political situation in Egypt and I found it very interesting to see the History unfold and the impact that this had on everyday Egyptians and on Westerners in the country.

Overall I did really enjoy reading this book and found it so interesting, especially at a time when so much here felt so new, but then could feel so familiar when I recognised them in the text. The book also contains some wonderful pictures that Amine took during her time in Egypt. These really depict everyday life in Cairo and its bustling streets – some thing feel like they haven’t changed in the 50 years since they were taken. I don’t know if I agree with Amine’s statement in her Preface that she didn’t have enough detachment when she was living there to write. She may not have had enough detachment to make a true account of her time living in Cairo, but I don’t think you need to wait to be detached before putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), in fact, I think that there is a huge value in writing in the moment – as you will never have that moment again. With hindsight though, you will always reflect differently on a situation, but I don’t think this takes away any of the value in capturing the moment as you live it.