The Epic of the Cup Reader: An Epic of Love and Betrayal

This work of literary fiction gathers Nizar Qabbani, Abdel Halim Hafez and Soad Hosny around the poem The Cup Reader, beginning in a Cairo heavy with politics where every café rang with songs and poems. Soad appears as a lonely woman behind the camera, Nizar as far more than a poet of love, and Abdel Halim as the son of the Nile whose voice carried the grief of millions. In a London room that smells of rain, at the home of Nizar and Balqis, Soad asks the poet to write about her fear, and the forbidden poem, its tears, and the swords of politics, ban and exile follow. Abdel Halim's last letter leads to the closing part, where the voice of the cup reader herself is heard.