Far from being pampered house pets, the cats of Cairo are street-smart survivors who roam freely throughout the city. However, their ancestors in ancient Egypt were revered as gods and were so beloved that they were portrayed in statues and jewelry. In subsequent centuries, the tradition of adoring cats continued and today, as Lorraine Chittock’s captivating photographs display, the mystique of the cat lives on. Discover your cat’s Egyptian heritage in this delightful gift book, which pays homage to the special and timeless bond that Egyptians have with the cat in the ever-changing city of Cairo. Rambling through mosques and markets, Lorraine Chittock, a cat-lover-cum-photographer, searched Cairo’s nooks and crannies for city-savvy felines, becoming a wildlife tracker in an urban environment. The resulting photographs are remarkable for their spontaneity and often whimsical sensitivities to both feline and human body language. Each intimate and thought-provoking photograph is complemented by an apposite literary passage, tempting the reader to explore tidbits of folklore, religion, and poetry from Egypt and the Arab world, while giving insights into an animal that has inspired fascinating tales for at least five thousand years.

Lorraine Chittock was born in California, lived in Cairo for seven years, then in Kenya for five. She is the author and photographer of Shadows in the Sand, about her trek along the legendary Forty Days Road. She now travels the world with her two Kenyan dogs, writing and photographing her adventures. Annemarie Schimmel (1922–2003) was a prolific scholar of Islam who taught at the universities of London, Ankara, Bonn, and Harvard. Dedicating her life to encouraging a better understanding of the Islamic world, she lectured in more than six languages and published eighty books.