Built in the heart of Cairo in the 1930s, a remnant of a bygone splendor, the Yacoubian Building is a sociocultural melting pot that is highly representative of 21st-century Egypt. On its staircase, Taha, the janitor’s son, who dreams of becoming a police officer; Hatem, the gay journalist; the elderly aristocrat Zaki, lost in his memories; Azzam, the shady wheeler-dealer who is as bigoted as he is lecherous; and the beautiful Boussaïna, who would like to work without having to endure her boss’s lustful advances—all cross paths or ignore one another... As a witness to an era, Alaa El Aswany casts a tender, non-judgmental gaze upon characters who are all struggling within the same trap: that of a society dominated by political corruption, the rise of Islamism, social inequalities, the absence of sexual freedom, and nostalgia for the past.