Resident and author tells all about Fayoum, one of six main oases in the Western Desert of Egypt
What's it like to live in a far-off place most of us see only on a vacation? Foreign Correspondence is an interview with someone who lives in a spot you may want to visit.
Neil Hewison, 52, is a native of Yorkshire, England, who has lived in Egypt since 1979. The Cairo resident is associate director of the American University in Cairo Press, which recently published a revised edition of his "The Fayoum: History and Guide" (US$19.95).
Q. The cover of your book is a startling landscape - like a palm-filled golf course in the foreground and stark desert in the background. Is this typical of the area called the Fayoum?
A. When you look at a map of Egypt, the Nile is like the stem of a lotus, and the Fayoum looks like a lotus bud that comes out from its side. You drive about an hour in the desert southwest of Cairo to the edge of the Fayoum depression. Water goes into it from a river that's off the Nile, and this creates the fertile area in what basically is the middle of the desert. Fayoum is one of six main oases in the Western Desert of Egypt.
See the above page for the full interview.
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