Ahlam Mamnoua (Forbidden Dreams) by Nour AbdulMaguied, Cairo: Al-Dar Al-Arabiya lel Kitab, 2012. pp. 340. A new novel by the writer Nour AbdulMaguied has been released from Al-Dar Al-Arabiya Lel Kitab entitled Forbidden Dreams. The novels dives into the world of the marginalised, charting their ambitions, joys and their efforts to escape the slums and enter the open world. In the novel, poverty stands against ambition, sexual inability derails a man’s struggle to achieve the fuller goals of his existence, and all the characters live inside a tense social context that blocks all possible progress. This block leads the people to explode in the end, finding their only exit in revolting against the circumstances of their lives. Nour AbdulMaguied, Egyptian writer and journalist, has one collection of poems entitled Cinderella is Coming Back, Barefoot, and four other novels.