Generation Revolution review – after the Arab spring

Rachel Aspden’s collection of intimate stories about the dilemmas faced by Egypt’s youth is both compelling and sobering

In the heady days of the 2011 uprising, it seemed as if Egypt’s youth, mobilising on social media and marching on Tahrir Square, had finally come into their own. When President Mubarak stepped down, I turned to my seventysomething Egyptian father, who had been on the barricades of the 1952 revolution, for words of wisdom on the future of the country.

“The army will be back in power within a year,” my father said. “But Dad, look at democracy in action, look at what the young people have achieved,” I protested, pompously quoting Wordsworth on the bliss of being alive and the very heaven of being young in such revolutionary times. “What about them?” “Ah, yes,” my father replied, without missing a beat. “They’ll be in prison.”

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