Egyptian Revolution and Post-Arab Spring Transition

Mass demonstrations beginning in January 2011 forced President Hosni Mubarak from office after almost three decades in power. The following years brought military rule, parliamentary and presidential elections, renewed demonstrations and intense conflict over the political direction of the country.

By 2014 a new political order had emerged under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, while the hopes and divisions exposed by the revolution continued to shape public life. This unsettled aftermath forms part of the Egyptian background to Colin Thubron’s novel Passage, whose journey through the Valley of the Kings is set amid a society still marked by the Arab Spring.